Black9 Preview

There are relatively few role-playing games that take place in futuristic settings, and even fewer played from a close-in third-person perspective, so Black9 may seem like a typical sci-fi action game at first glance. But while you can expect to engage in plenty of hacking, slashing, and shooting in the game, Black9 is fundamentally an action RPG backed up by a flexible skill-based system for developing your high-tech mercenary character. And not only will Black9 have a complex, conspiracy-laden story for the single-player campaign, but Taldren's multiplayer plans for all three platforms--PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2--will also include full cooperative play through the campaign and competitive modes that will let players develop persistent characters.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to unravel the conspiracy as one of four mercenary characters.

We recently had a chance to visit Taldren's studio in Costa Mesa, California, and meet with the designers, who cut their teeth creating the Star Trek-themed Starfleet Command series. Although the Starfleet Command titles are considered by most fans to be some of the best Star Trek-licensed games around, it's obvious that the Taldren team is happy to be working on its first completely original game. The concept for Black9 has been on the table since late 2000, but it wasn't until last summer that work stepped up on the project. Since it's a cross-platform title that's very different from its previous work, Taldren has had to quickly double the size of its staff.

One result of this long preproduction phase is that Erik Bethke, Taldren's CEO, had plenty of time to develop his ideas for Black9's story and setting. The year is 2080. The world's nations as we know them have collapsed, and the secret society known as the Illuminati is the major force behind a new era of prosperity, technological growth, and space exploration. Just to make things interesting, it turns out the there are nine different Illuminati groups (hence the game's title), and they have all acted in secret for hundreds of years but now have a much larger role to play. And most importantly for you, a highly skilled mercenary, the different Illuminati groups all have their own plans, and these potential employers can be played against each other for a profit.

Nano magic, big guns, and stealth can all come in handy.

Starting off in Black9, you'll make some basic choices to customize your mercenary. There are four body types to choose from: a standard human male Taldren calls Jake, a human female called Sahara, a male juggernaut called Groober, and an elfin girl complete with a tail called Alyssa (though you can rename the characters whatever you wish). Besides determining what your character looks like, these four body types can also affect your starting attributes. It works pretty much as you'd expect--the two standard human characters are equals and pretty average in terms of attributes, while the juggernaut is stronger than he is agile, and the catlike female gets a boost in nimbleness to offset her lack of raw power. Right from the start, you'll have some attribute and skill points to assign. Essentially, the four attributes (strength, agility, dexterity, and constitution) will have an overall impact on how effective your actions are, and the skill points deal with specifics. For example, a very strong character may be able to bash doors down, an agile character can jump higher and move faster, someone with high dexterity is good with his or her hands and can better use the game's futuristic nanotech magic, and a high constitution means more health.