Astro Boy E3 2004 Preshow Impressions

This summer, Sega's Sonic Team will be bringing North American gamers a chance to step into the million-horsepowered boots of Astro Boy, the classic manga/anime icon, in a fully 3D action adventure game. Already available in Japan, Astro Boy for the PS2 is currently undergoing an English translation and dub (which will feature a cast of experienced cartoon voice actors). The game will also have a few gameplay additions, such as a minimap to help orient players in the game's vast, open-ended environments, as well as new character portraits and tweaked controls.

The game itself will let Astro Boy experience Osamu Tezuka's unique manga world from a third-person perspective. You'll get to interact with other Astro Boy characters such as Dr. O'Shay and Zoran, as well as fly about beating up bad guys using signature moves like digibeams and the arm cannon. Astro Boy's other abilities, including x-ray vision and supersonic hearing, will also apparently come into play. For such a little guy, Astro Boy is capable of some impressive amounts of destruction--it's a good thing the game features the latest version of the Havok physics engine! Now you can look forward to bad guys and debris flying about in all directions in dynamic, realistic form.

We're looking forward to seeing how the domestic version of Astro Boy will shape up. Stay tuned for further updates, or check out our previous coverage of the game for more information.