Child of Eden First Look

Earlier today, Ubisoft's press conference got off to a great start when Tetsuya Mizuguchi (best known for games like Rez, Space Channel 5, and Lumines) took to the stage and gave a lengthy demo of the recently announced Child of Eden. Wearing white gloves on a stage almost entirely devoid of light, Mizuguchi-san looked like a conductor leading an orchestra as he moved his hands around without the need of a controller to play the Xbox 360 Kinect version of the game.

Like Rez, Child of Eden is an on-rails shooter in which you spend much of your time flying into the screen and locking onto enemies who--like the incredibly busy environment around them--seem to move and pulsate in time with the music. As Mizuguchi destroyed enemies, the resulting explosions added to the music and, although this is a very similar system to that used in Rez, the audio was actually more reminiscent of that in Lumines. Unlike in Rez, where most of the enemies appeared to be mechanical, many of the enemies in Child of Eden have an organic look about them. Also, where Rez was played from a third-person perspective, and you evolved or devolved depending on your performance, in Child of Eden it appears that you'll just be controlling an aiming reticle.

Exactly how you'll control that reticle isn't clear, but Mizuguchi appeared to be aiming simply by moving his right hand and shooting by opening and closing that same hand. At times he also appeared to clap his hands together, though it wasn't immediately apparent what effect, if any, this was having. We look forward to bringing you that information and lots more just as soon as we have an opportunity to play the game ourselves.