GC '07: Totems Impressions

LEIPZIG, Germany--Earlier today, during a visit to 10tacle Studios' booth at the 2007 Games Convention, we had an opportunity to attend a brief presentation on Totems. Announced for the PC and the Xbox 360 just last week, Totems is an action adventure game in which you'll assume the role of a parkour expert named Gia. We weren't told too much about Totems' story, but we were given a great demonstration of how incredibly agile the aforementioned protagonist is.

Gia's expertise in parkour comes from one of the four totem spirits whose powers she's able to use. Her agility comes from the monkey spirit, her speed comes from the cheetah spirit, and her combat skills come from the bear spirit. We weren't told what powers the songbird spirit will afford you, except that they have something to do with creativity. Interestingly, each of the four spirits is mapped to a different face button on the Xbox 360 controller, and so each button can be used to perform a massive number of different moves depending on the context in which you press it.

Using only the monkey button during our presentation, the player was able to navigate a number of different obstacles, including high walls, columns, wide gaps, and narrow ledges. The animation was seamless, and the one-button control system is purportedly possible because of how aware Gia and other characters in Totems are of their surroundings. This was demonstrated to us in a number of different ways. When slowly moving toward the corner of a rooftop, for example, Gia automatically stopped and leaned over the edge to look down, and when left standing idle next to a low wall, she casually brushed her hand along the top of it.

The anthropomorphic tigers that attacked Gia at one point were also very aware of the geometry around them, and were incorporating parkour-style wall jumps and the like into some of their own combat moves. Like Gia's, their moves were occasionally superhuman, including cat leaps and muscle-ups worthy of the Agency operatives in Crackdown.

We didn't get a whole lot of information from today's Totems session, but we saw just enough of the game to make us hungry for more. We look forward to bringing you additional information on this one just as soon as it becomes available.