TGS: We Try PlayStation 2 X-Fire

TOKYO - The clear highlight of Electronic Arts' booth at the Tokyo Game Show was the company's first PlayStation2 title, X-Fire. Not only did displays for the X-Fire fill a majority of the front wall of the company's booth, but there were also demonstrations of the game on a small stage. (See pictures.) After checking out some of the stage antics, we took X-Fire for a test run. What we found was that it was still very early - too early to start making any judgements.

The graphics certainly weren't PlayStation2 quality, and as for animation and gameplay, it seemed as though everything needed a lot of work. My big worry, though, was that, while several of the PlayStation2 titles we got our hands on today also seemed very early, they all displayed some new graphical or gameplay elements that make use of the new PlayStation2 hardware. X-Fire showed no sign of that - it came off as a standard GoldenEye-esque corridor shooter. But again, the game is at a very early in its development (the tag listed it as 30 percent complete), so hopefully much work will be done on the title in the future.