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Aurora Watching Hands-On

We take an early look at Aurora Watching, a Metal Gear-style stealth action game from Poland's Metropolis Software.

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Aurora Watching may very well answer the age-old question: What if Metal Gear's Solid Snake were European? That's because this stealth action game, from Polish developer Metropolis Software, is clearly influenced by Konami's popular Metal Gear games. However, Aurora Watching is being designed for the PC, not the consoles, and we were able to check out the first few levels to get a feel for how the game is shaping up.

Aurora Watching feels much like an European Metal Gear. It's kind of like from Russia, with love.
Aurora Watching feels much like an European Metal Gear. It's kind of like from Russia, with love.

The game is actually a follow-up to Gorky Zero: Beyond Honor, a stealth action game released last year. And Gorky Zero was itself a prequel to 1999's Odium, which was sort of a cross between X-Com and Final Fantasy. All three games share the same protagonist in the form of Cole Sullivan. An ex-NATO commando, Sullivan is once again recruited after a Russian submarine mysteriously sinks to the bottom of the Barents Sea. The first missions involve investigating a secret installation hidden in the frozen wastelands, and you have to sneak around, neutralize guards, and figure out ways to unlock and disable security systems. You use the mousewheel to select your character's speed, from a slow crawl, to a normal walk, to a run. Thus, it's relatively simple to sneak up behind a guard and either pistol-whip him or knife him.

The game is played one of two ways. There's a traditional top-down view, which is certainly reminiscent of the Metal Gear style. You see your character maneuver around the mazelike environments, and you can target enemies simply by looking at them, which makes a crosshair appear. By hitting the space bar, you can toggle to a third-person, behind-the-back view, which is useful for seeing distant objects or for manually aiming your weapon.

No self-respecting lone-wolf superagent goes into battle unprepared, and your character is outfitted with a variety of high-tech gadgets and weapons. There's a standard pistol, which fires regular and silent ammunition, as well as medical kits, a portable computer for hacking into enemy systems, and distraction devices that can draw the attention of a sentry, letting you sneak past him or sneak up on him and take him out. In addition to carrying your knife and pistol, you can pick up weapons from fallen enemies, including submachine guns and sniper rifles. Ammunition is treated very much in a Metal Gear style: You don't lug around tons of ammunition, but rather you tend to have just enough to get you through a battle, at which point you can resupply by searching enemy bodies again.

The version that we played could be played only on the easiest difficulty setting, but in general the performance of the enemies is on par with enemies in other games of this genre. Sentries patrol in a pattern, and they will detect you if you make too much noise or stumble into view. The sound of battle will attract nearby sentries; however, it's possible for other enemies on the level not to detect what's going on.

You'll shoot, sneak, and even snowmobile your way across the early levels, just like James Bond.
You'll shoot, sneak, and even snowmobile your way across the early levels, just like James Bond.

Like Metal Gear and other console-style stealth action games, Aurora Watching features action-type sequences. For example, early on, you have to figure out a way to unlock a gate, behind which are several snowmobiles. Do so and you start up timed race sequences where you have to motor along a snowy trail to get to the next gate before it closes. This means you have to careen through narrow gullies while dodging cascading boulders, as well as jump over gorges off makeshift ramps.

The plot twists a bit further into the game, and you'll get the chance to play as a female agent attempting to assist Sullivan. You also start to uncover more of the game's plot, which involves some kind of mutant zombies and nefarious tinkering with human DNA. Aurora Watching is so heavily influenced by Metal Gear-style games that it'll be interesting to see how it does. Admittedly, there aren't too many Metal Gear-style games on the PC, as the stealth action genre tends to skew toward the Splinter Cell-style of gameplay, which focuses much more on staying hidden and using gadgets to solve puzzles and sneak past your enemies. Aurora Watching is scheduled to ship later this year.

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