If you weren’t looking for Outland at PAX 2010 from Ubisoft, you could have missed it. With only one demo station and a very passionate designer giving everyone tours of it, Outland was easily one of my biggest surprises of the show. Using a combination of old school Prince of Persia platforming and Ikaruga-style transformations, the game looks gorgeous and challenging. What I was shown was a pre-alpha build of the game featuring one main level and the first major boss battle. I was floored by the demo.
Created by a ten man team, the game is a combination of several genres. What is truly unique is the art style. I could not help myself from checking out all the backgrounds, fluid animations and the characters. The best way I can describe it is Tron crossed with Aztec lore. Even the boss that I was shown had an Aztec flare, but I was told that they also looked as Asian shadow puppetry. If you aren’t a puppetry fanatic, it basically means that light shines through to show features, with great detail.
The use of light (blue color) and dark (red color) in the game is integral to every mechanic. Traversing the world, you can only use certain platforms when in the light or dark form. The enemies also can only be attacked by the opposite color. So if you are in dark mode, you can only attack light color enemies and vice versa. Some enemies and traps shoot projectiles that also use this light and dark mechanic, so this is where the Ikaruga comparison rears its head. In the boss battle, there were a ton of bullets flying at the character and changing forms was the only way to survive.
Outland will challenge your dexterity. Even the developer, who had played the game about 20 times this morning was having a difficult time staying alive during the demo. Luckily for our thumbs and fingers, there are some magic spells that can heal you. What was stressed to me during the preview was that you can gain more life as you find hidden items.
It was truly unfortunate that Outland did not have a bigger presence in the Ubisoft booth. I was able to get a 10-minute walkthrough by one of the developers, which was greatly appreciated and it looks like the game is turning out nicely. I hope we learn more of this original title before its release early next year on XBLA and PSN.
