Without Warning E3 2005 Preshow Hands-On

Capcom today laid down more details on Without Warning, the Xbox and PS2 multiperspective terrorist-thwarting action game it announced in February. Without Warning is the first title from CiRCLE Studio, formed by some of the original creators of the Tomb Raider franchise. In it, gamers will take on the role of six disparate characters, each with his or her own perspective on the events that unfold in the Peterson-Daniels Chemical Facility over the 12 hours in which the game takes place.

In fact, one of the core conceits of the game is that many of the events in it will be witnessed by more than one of the playable characters, although you'll only be able to control one at a time, making for a series of experiences and reexperiences as you see events unfold from multiple perspectives. Capcom says that gameplay will automatically shift from character to character as events unfold, often at critical moments in the game.

The cast of characters is fairly diverse, with each of the six playable characters having his or her own motivations and reasons for entering the facility. Three of the characters are members of a counterterrorist strike force sent to disable the terrorists that have taken control of the chemical plant; these characters will engage in bomb-disabling and lock-picking minigames as they attempt to disable the traps the terrorists have set. Additionally, they'll be engaging in a whole lot of shooting. The other three characters are more diverse. Dave Wilson is a security guard, trapped by the terrorist invasion, who seeks to free his coworkers from captivity. Meanwhile, Ben Harrison is a cameraman on the facility grounds who seeks to capture as much quality footage of the drama as he can for his station. And Tanya Shaw is a lowly secretary who only seeks to escape from the facility before she's captured by the terrorists. Can crawling through vents be far behind? Indeed, Tanya and Ben should offer substantially different gameplay mechanics from the more combat-oriented characters as they all attempt to avoid terrorist attention, use fire extinguishers to make their ways through fires, and more.

[UPDATE] During Capcom's pre-E3 conference this morning, we were able to play through the E3 demo of Without Warning on both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The demo featured only two of the game's six playable characters, namely a counterterrorist soldier named Hooper, and Wilson, the aforementioned security guard.

Our first objective in the demo, while playing as Hooper, was to get inside the office building in which much of the demo takes place without falling victim to the numerous terrorists patroling outside. Stealth doesn't appear to be an option in Without Warning, and within moments of picking up the controller, we found ourselves coming under fire from multiple enemies. We were able to duck behind objects that afforded us some cover, and since it's very easy to lock your sights onto enemies simply by pushing a trigger button, none of them proved to be particularly challenging once we'd managed to locate them.

Shortly before we played a brief lock-picking minigame to get into the office building, we were treated to a cutscene that showed security guard Wilson shooting his way into the building via a different route. Moments later, we found ourselves playing as Wilson as he got into a gunfight with multiple terrorists and, ultimately, got a little too close to a grenade. Switching between characters in Without Warning is automatic, so you'll have no say whatsoever as to when it happens. Most of the switches will be no more than 10 minutes apart, and they will often coincide with cliff-hangers so you'll always be eager to get back to each character.

Our final task in the E3 demo was to find and disarm three C4 charges that the now-deceased terrorists had managed to plant in the office building before we caught up with them. The time limit was definitely tight, but all the packages had been placed on doors rather than hidden in any way. Consequently, disarming them required us to do nothing more than repeat a simple sequence of button presses for just a few seconds.

Without Warning was quite impressive visually, and we had no problem getting used to the game's slightly unconventional but intuitive control scheme. Without Warning is currently scheduled for release this fall. We'll bring you more infomration on the game as soon as it becomes available.