Hit and Myth E3 2005 Hands-On Report

Hit and Myth, a new action game for the Gizmondo, was built with one very specific goal in mind: provide Gizmondo owners with some good, old-fashioned, dumb, violent fun. One perfect template for such a game is Smash TV, one of the most stupidly entertaining games of the arcade era. The simplified overhead perspective, waves of enemies, and dual joystick mechanic made for a killer combination indeed. From what we've seen, Gizmondo's Hit and Myth doesn't quite capture the frictionless ease of its progenitor's controls, but its more advanced graphics and additional gameplay elements, like multiple characters and magic, may be enough to fill the gap.

There are four characters to choose from in Hit and Myth--a horse-borne knight, a sasquatch, a leprechaun, and a female pirate. This weird assortment of heroes belong to an agency called the Arcane Department of Heroic Defense, and they're called to beat back some demonic threat that's trying to take over four mythic worlds. We picked Cadbury, the knight, and proceeded to the Halloween stage. This level smacked heavily of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, complete with evil pumpkins rolling around spitting projectiles at you. We galloped around with the D pad, shooting arrows in four directions with the other face buttons. This mechanic wasn't nearly as good as Smash TV's 360-degree field of fire, but it worked well enough for us to survive and pick up our first magic spell--an aura of some kind that doubled our combat effectiveness.

Hit and Myth will be released in the US before the end of 2005. We look forward to seeing more of this game in future months.