Danger Girl Preview

If there's one adage that permeates every facet of popular culture, from movies to music to advertising and, yes, even to video games, it's this: Sex sells. Load up an entertainment product with the right amount of curvature, and the result is an almost guaranteed hit. Most recently, the perennial Tomb Raider and its vivacious heroine Lara Croft have hammered this lesson home. Ostensibly in the same vein, THQ and n-Space are now working on Danger Girl, a 3D action game based on the comic book of the same name.

Fans of Danger Girl may already be salivating at the prospect of controlling the crack team of specialists in video game form, but for the uninitiated, here's a quick rundown: The Danger Girl comic series stars a very curvaceous group of females who specialize in international crisis management, black ops, and other typical James Bond stuff. Picture a contemporary Charlie's Angels on a global scale, and you've got the right idea. Each member of the Danger Girl team has a certain look and reputation - Abbey Chase is the standard blonde bombshell and leader of the team, while Slavic beauty Natalia is the former Russian military agent turned freelance intelligence operative. Hailing from Australia, Sydney Savage is a master of stealth and sharpshooting, and Silicon Valerie is the geeky (but buxom) hacker. n-Space says that of the three playable characters, only Abbey and Sydney will be drawn from the existing comics, hinting that a surprise is in store as to whom the mysterious third player will be. Perhaps a new character is being designed specifically for the game?

In gameplay terms, Danger Girl is making the transition from printed page to video screen with its trademark adventuring intact. Viewed from the third person, the game's levels take place in a fully 3D environment with a variety of mission objectives to be accomplished. Screenshots released so far indicate a play experience much like that of Syphon Filter. Some gameplay situations will be uniquely tailored to involve the special skills of each character. For instance, Sydney will encounter circumstances that demand a high degree of secrecy and stealth - her specialty. The game features single-player missions only, because, according to the development team (who is working closely with the series' creator), a tightly focused, linear narrative is at the heart of the game.

Speaking of story, n-Space is being very mindful of the Danger Girl canon and is working hard to integrate plenty of elements from the series into the game. In fact, the game's designers hope to include some specific ties to various parts of the comic book to give fans something to relate to and to solidify the Danger Girl video game as part of the comic book's universe. Picking up after the events that culminate in issue seven of the series but before the beginning of the new storyline, the game's story will nevertheless feature links to the current story arc. This should give the Danger Girl game an up-to-date feel and help it blend with the issues that fans will be reading at the same time the game is released.

Having experienced one delay already, Danger Girl is now slated for a nebulous "2000" release date. However, n-Space is putting a lot of effort into keeping it faithful to the comic book series and providing a quality game experience at the same time, so hopefully Danger Girl will be worth the wait.