Predator: Concrete Jungle Hands-On

Officially announced just last week, Vivendi's new game, Predator: Concrete Jungle, has made its playable debut here at E3 2004. The game puts you in the role of a young alien hunter, and its mission-based gameplay puts you on the hunt against mobsters, corrupt cops, and other worthy prey.

You can read a bit more about the game's story in our pre-E3 coverage of the game, so let's just cut to the chase. How does Concrete Jungle play? Well, the game's a third-person action game with some cool potential for combo attacks that gives it a bit of a Devil May Cry twist. But the game looks like it'll be much more than just running around and beating people up with your combistick and cutting people up with your smart disc; you'll have actual missions to accomplish, as well. Some missions are as simple as eliminating a target. One objective has you taking out the corrupt chief of police. Another has you stealthily tailing a mobster into a museum.

Thanks to the predator's unique powers, you'll have a lot of options at your disposal. When it comes to stealth, nothing comes in handy quite like the ability to turn nearly invisible. The ability to jump very, very high lets you stick to the rooftops and rafters, safely out of sight. The predator's different vision modes didn't come into play very much during the demo areas we saw, but things like night vision are sure to come in handy when things get dark. You'll also be able to lure prey toward you with fake human voices. It sounds like some of these voice clips will come from the Predator films, which is a neat idea.

Graphically, Concrete Jungle has a pretty smooth look to it. The predator model is as menacing as ever, and the animation makes that model move pretty well. The mission-based gameplay looks like it could provide some interesting quests, and bonus missions, like time attacks and other little goals, should round out the package pretty nicely. Predator: Concrete Jungle is scheduled for release on PlayStation 2 and Xbox during the fourth quarter of the year.