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> http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/612....html?fromint=1
>
> Possession: Hands-on
>
> There's nothing quite like a little zombie-holocaust-horror to kickstart
> the next generation. First hands-on and screens.
> by Douglass C. Perry
> May 11, 2005 - The videogame industry is like a haunted house built on a
> graveyard of frightfully constant evils. I'm not talking about obvious
> evils. Yes, publishers drive developers mad, game journalists drive
> publishers made, and people on the Internet drive everyone mad. But those
> little vicious circles are nothing compared to the very basis of the
> videogame industry. What am I talking about? Ninjas, robots, and
> zombies -- the staples of videogames. Whichever way you turn, you'll
> somehow find one of these three game types in hordes.
>
>
>
> Is it evil to constantly return to the basics? Is it silly? Is it
> infuriating? Maybe, robots, ninjas and zombies represent a little of all
> of those. I know it sounds silly, but we love our ninjas, robots, and
> zombies. Metal Arms, Ratchet and Clank, Resident Evil, Ninja Gaiden,
> Shinobi, these are just the most recent games in the long litany of games
> based on the standards. You name the system and the era, and you'll find
> them on the surface, below the surface, wherever you might go, they're
> there, like a super evil grave just waiting to be built upon.
>
> Blitz Games, creators of the early Xbox party game, Fusion Frenzy, love
> their zombies. Having studied the great zombie holocaust genre in movies
> and popular culture -- Dawn of the Dead and Evil Dead being central
> inspirations -- the English developer has embarked on a remarkable new
> game based on the world of zombies with a different take. In the new
> next-generation game Possession, you will take control of a mutated,
> powerful zombie leader and literally command and control hundreds of
> zombies in a revolt against a tyrannical capitalist corporation.
>
> Yes, it sounds crazy, perhaps even a little goofy. But we've seen it,
> played it, and in all honesty, there is nothing quite like unleashing as
> many as 200 flesh-hungry zombies in realtime into a crowd of innocent
> people and watching them transform humans into the undead, adding to your
> army, which you can then unleash on, oh I don't know, a squad of corrupt
> policemen, an group of SWAT members, or a small cadre of military
> soldiers.
>
> The story is a little reminiscent of the movie 28 Days Later. Following
> four activists who break into a science lab, Possession shows the foursome
> accidentally unleashing biohazardous chemicals and mutating themselves
> into zombies within hours. You take on the role of the leader, a
> extraordinarily strong and somehow relatively intelligent zombie -- an
> oxymoron we know -- who leads the three others on a quest. Your goal? To
> take control of the city and to crush the evil corporation. The
> development team tagline is, "Take command of the dead and lay waste to
> the living." OK, so the game is not quite D.H. Lawrence, but the familiar
> backdrop and the commanding tagline do serve as the perfect foundation for
> this intriguing next-gen zombie game.
>
>
>
>
> "We're creating a game that fills the player with a sensation of
> empowerment through the main character (The Enslaver), their actions, and
> the game's responses to them," said Nick Dixon, design manager for
> Possession. "We're designing true emergent mechanics that create
> excitement, visual variation and massive re-playability. To house the
> action we're creating a large, open-plan city in which the player can
> create havoc, destruction and chaos, a city that reacts realistically to
> the player's actions."
>
> First and foremost, Possession enables you to quickly and easily control
> hundreds of highly textured, high polygon-count zombies across a city
> equal or perhaps larger than Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The control
> scheme is intuitive, instant, and likeable. By pressing a single button
> (left trigger), you'll instantly be able to send an ever-expanding circle
> out to immediately select dozens of zombies. Once touched, you can send
> the zombies to a location. Better yet you can send a group of zombies in
> one direction, while sending another group in another direction. By using
> the Dpad, you can command zombies to follow, mutate, attack enemies, or
> guard an area.
>
> Second, the city is 8 kilometers long and 6 kilometers wide, and consists
> of three districts, the suburbs, downtown, and the corporate district. You
> can take multiple paths through the sections, which open up as you
> progress, and you'll have to employ an evolving strategy to counter the
> increasingly difficult and powerful enemies that try to wipe out your
> zombie army.
>
> __
>
>
> "We're all huge zombie fanboys and wanted to create a game that honored
> the best elements of the zombie genre," continued Dixon. "We'll put a
> twist on things though. Usually the player is the lone survivor,
> navigating dark corridors filled with a handful of zombies. That's fine
> and makes for a great game, but it's been done many times. Possession
> isn't survival horror -- in this you are the horror and the humans try to
> survive you. We're making something truly different and fresh to play, yet
> instantly recognizable, representing the best of zombie films and games.
> The player is the architect of this zombie holocaust. You command and
> possess hundreds of zombies, and turn a living, breathing city into a
> place fit only for the dead."
>
>
>
> The game strategies will emerge as you progress. At first Blitz wants you
> to simply get accustomed to the controls. Soon, however, you'll face
> situations like this: You and a small band of zombies take to the street
> (I already like the sound of this). On your right is a crowd of scared
> people, stuck in an alley of cul-de-sac. In the distance, you can see a
> policeman or two. The police are far enough away to ignore you, but you'll
> need to pass them to progress. You quickly group and command your zombie
> army to attack and transform the innocent crowd. You'll watch as the NPCs
> scream and run, only to be mobbed by the zombies, which bite and gnaw, hit
> and beat the humans until they're dead. In Possession, humans transform
> into zombies right quick, so within less than 30 seconds, you have doubled
> or tripled your zombie army from say, 10 to 30.
>
> Now, it's time to take care of the police. One strategy is to power right
> down the middle of the street. You could send out all you zombies right
> down the pipe to try and just maul them with numbers. But as you get
> closer, you realize the cops have rocket launchers. Subtle, isn't it?
> Apparently, the cops are aware of your zombie shenanigans. What you'll
> instantly learn is that the rocket launchers will immediately tear up your
> army of undead, and you'll be left with nothing. A better strategy is to
> split the army into groups, almost a little like in Full Spectrum Warrior
> or First to Fight, with each team lining a street side. When the cop
> attacks one side, the other will come through and maul his XXX. To add to
> the zombie mayhem, you can intimidate your enemies. You can use fear to
> destroy an overzealous or overconfident police force. It's in these kinds
> of ways you'll find the game is strategic and tactical. Who would have
> thought of zombies as soldiers?
>
>
> Possession takes zombies to new places. The powerful stuff you imbued that
> initially transformed you grows inside every person in unique ways. People
> react to it different ways, and the results are a wide variety of zombies.
> You'll encounter Shamblers, Runners, Bloaters, Shredders, and Monsters --
> plus Enslavers. What the hell are we talking about? Dixon explains.
>
> "We have five main zombie types: The Shambler is the iconic zombie, clumsy
> and slow with little remaining intellect other than very base instincts.
> They have only one real interest. food, and are little more than awkwardly
> motorized pieces of meat. Whilst slow, clumsy and weak attackers, they are
> dangerous in large numbers and aggressively determined when in sight of
> food. Shamblers that originate from armed opponents will become armed
> zombie units. Possess these guys and you can also fire their weapon from
> first person! They can swallow a lot of punishment so Shamblers make great
> body shields as well.
>
> "The Runner is the modern zombie. Fast, athletic, with terrifying
> animalistic attacks, they're tactically the polar opposite to the
> Shamblers. They move at a full sprint and can clamber over objects in
> order to get to their prey. They can't take as much punishment though and
> also can't carry weapons. So here you choose speed over resilience,
> savagery over brute force.
>
> __
>
>
>
> Possession: Hands-on
> << Previous Page | 1 | 2 | 3
> "Then there's the Bloater. my personal favorite. As a corpse decomposes it
> releases gasses, which become trapped in the body and causing it to bloat
> to distended proportions. This mutation causes an instant ballooning of
> the walking corpse with infected gas. When the Bloater reaches its attack
> position it'll explode, spreading the noxious gasses around, infecting
> anyone caught within the radius.
>
>
>
> "For the final two mutate stages we get pretty nasty. The Shredder
> mutation re-organizes the dead flesh, producing a unique new killing
> machine, with the ability to climb any surface. These guys are
> super-efficient pack hunters - Possession's zombie spec-ops. They've also
> got a unique 1st-person vision mode that identifies different enemy
> threats. They're fairly weak though and will fall quite quickly to
> accurate weapon fire.
>
> "Finally you have the Monster. Standing at around 10 feet tall, the
> Monster is a mass of fused and mutated dead flesh - a zombie tank. These
> guys are built for a single purpose, destruction on a massive scale. The
> Monster can toss around heavy objects such as cars without any problem.
> Their main issue is that unlike any of the other zombie types, Monsters
> are unable to spread infection into those that they kill."
>
> With a diverse set of zombies at your side, the game strategies grow more
> intriguing. Blitz Games cited IO Interactive as a developer it
> particularly loves. The Hitman and Freedom Fighters series have inspired
> the team to create multiple paths and creative ways to beat a level. The
> city isn't just a lifeless set of polygonal buildings. It's a working city
> complete with media, water systems, electrical systems, and police
> communications systems.
>
> In some levels you can destroy electrical plants or set fires to crashed
> gas tankers to eliminate enemies. In others, if you dare, you might be
> able to take on and destroy entire police departments, eliminating the
> call for help and even more difficult enemies. The enemy ranks don't just
> sop at police, either, so taking out high levels systems is totally
> necessary. The armed forces of this city range from the police to SWAT
> teams, to the National Guard, and even military air strikes.
>
>
> Finally, Possession is in the works to be an online game. The online plans
> are a little less, erm, fleshed out at this point, but all five zombie
> types, plus the enslaver, will be available for a multitude of modes.
> Players can use cricket bats and chainsaws in various modes, and a single
> Enslaver player can control the horde and hunt down a handful of FPS
> survivors, or they can grab a shotgun (or even a cricket bat!) and see how
> long they last against the hundreds of zombies.
>
> "We looked at a lot of classic zombie movies and tried to bring out the
> real essence of these movies for the player, giving them a chance to
> experience all the same events in the game," explained Dixon. "We're
> getting the right balance between teamwork and paranoia. For example,
> players will be able to get infected with the zombie virus, and their
> teammates will have to inject them with antidote. Of course, a bullet in
> the brain will cure them even faster so if you get infected you might want
> to keep quiet about it!
>
> "We realized pretty early on that designing a multiplayer game with
> zombies could create some fairly odd situations. We wanted players to be
> able to scavenge supplies from dead bodies, but quickly realized that
> these bodies might well get up and start walking round the level. That's
> the kind of weirdness that this game can throw up from time to time, and
> it's what makes our multiplayer games unique.
>
> "We've also tried to make the online game a frightening experience. There
> are lots of games out there providing adrenalin thrills, but no one has
> really tried to get survival horror into the online environment -
> overcoming limited resources, battling against a real horde of zombies and
> wondering which one of your teammates is going to be infected next! So
> whilst the single-player game is about you creating the terror, we also
> have the best elements of survival horror within the online play."
>
> In all, Possession has the potential to be an incredible game packed with
> both familiar B-movie zombie stunts and the unfamiliar experience of
> commanding hundreds of zombies at the touch of a button. Dixon and his
> team have envisioned a sophisticated and highly amusing game that's deep
> with an evolving storyline, continuously emerging gameplay strategies and
> tactics, and an impressive technology enabling hundreds of character to
> stalk the street at your command. The only thing? Blitz Games hasn't quite
> nailed a publisher just yet. Slated for a 2007 release on next-generation
> systems and PC (read Xbox 360 and PS3), Possession poses huge potential
> that remains untapped. We'll be eagerly anticipating the outcome of this
> E3, as Blitz Games will attend and hopefully strike a deal with some smart
> publisher.
>
>
>

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>Whats really impressive is the screenshots of 2 days to vegas. The graphics
>are truly photo realistic.

quote:

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> Whats really impressive is the screenshots of 2 days to vegas. The
> graphics are truly photo realistic.
>
> RnR Lesnar
>
>

quote:

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> x-no-archive: yes
>
> what is impressive is the massive amount of crap console
> propaganda retard consolists are doing in our pc group
>
> we pc gamers have that type of graphics for at least two
> years so we don't need to buy any new crap console junk
> to have great gaming experience
>
> pc games are the best!
> crap consoles are junk!
>
> --
> post made in a steam-free computer
> i said "NO" to valve and steam
>

quote:

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> what is impressive is the massive amount of crap console
> propaganda retard consolists are doing in our pc group

quote:

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> Well first I didn't realize this has been cross posted to pc groups.
> Second, I've got a PC that is more than capable of running todays
> games, and I still chose consoles over PC games. To each his own.
>
> RnR Lesnar
>

quote:

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> Well first I didn't realize this has been cross posted to pc groups.
> Second, I've got a PC that is more than capable of running todays
> games, and I still chose consoles over PC games. To each his own.