The Kore Gang Impressions

CDV Software showed off an early build of its upcoming Xbox adventure game, The Kore Gang, at E3 2003. The game's plot involves three friends--a little girl named Pixie, a young boy named Madboy, and a Chihuahua named Rex--trying to find their way out of an underground world, using the help of a contraption called the Kore Suit.

Depending on which character is using the Kore Suit, it takes on different properties and gives you different abilities. Pixie has the ability to climb with the suit and lash out with a grappling-hook-like appendage to pull herself from ledge to ledge. When Madboy is controlling the suit, it has extremely enhanced fighting skills, letting you punch and smack enemies with giant iron hands. When Rex the dog is controlling the suit, you can run about on four legs and take advantage of extremely enhanced hearing and smelling capabilities. At E3, we used Rex's smelling ability, which is represented onscreen as a trail of smoke leading up to specific points of interest. The hearing ability was a bit harder to use, with the all the other ambient noise on the show floor, but it will allow you to listen in on distant conversations.

As you can imagine, the Kore Gang's gameplay will be similar to games like MDK or Munch's Oddysee, as you'll be using the unique abilities of each character to get through areas and solve puzzles. There are still opportunities for more creative uses of each character, however. For example, one enemy we encountered is a large robotlike creature with a gun. Every few shots, a smaller enemy pops out of the robot's head to reload the gun. The obvious solution is to beat up the robot using Madboy, but if you're skilled, it's possible to use Pixie's grappling hook to yank the little guy out of the robot's head when it stops to reload.

The Kore Gang is slated to ship for the Xbox in the second half of this year. We'll have more information on the game as it becomes available.