E3 2002Gungrave hands-on

The manga-inspired action game under development by Red Entertainment and Smilebit is playable at E3. The game's scenario, as well as the design of the main character, was conceived by Naito Yasuhiro, the creator behind the ultrapopular Japanese anime Trigun. The game itself is a third-person shooter with a lively cel-shaded visual style and a decidedly gritty, hard-boiled tone. The main character is a heavily armed and skilled gunman, and he carries around on his back a large object that resembles a coffin-shaped guitar case. Along with his gun, he uses this object as a weapon, and we've seen him deploy it in a variety of ways--he swings it around, sort of like a flail, hitting all enemies in his immediate radius, or he mounts it on his body like you would a rocket launcher and fires a screen-clearing rocket shell from it.

The level we saw at E3 was pretty linear in design, though there was seldom a slow moment. Half of the time it took place in cramped, indoor environments, and the other half was set in a sort of urban-rooftops environment. Each of these was equally packed with enemies, though, which made the distinctions between their looks much less defined. Prior to the start of the stage, we were treated to a heavily stylized, traditionally animated cutscene, at the end of which the unsavory characters that our onscreen persona interacted with rose for an attack. The game's attractive visual style made the transition between the hand-drawn cutscene and real-time 3D gameplay seem quite fluid. The game's visuals are significant in that they apply cel-shading to the environments as heavily as they do to the characters--so much so that the environments really started to steal the show. Black lines emphasized details in the buildings and traced their outlines, making them feel much a part of the environments and doing much to communicate a gritty tone. Some elements in the environments were destructible, which added significantly to the game's run-and-gun dynamic.

Gungrave is quite simple from a mechanical standpoint. You walk around--quite slowly--with the left analog stick, though if you want to pick up the pace, you can hold down the circle button to run. Shooting is done with X, and, at least as far as the weapon in the E3 demo goes, ammo is endless. There's a level of auto-aiming implemented, though its level of intelligence is a little questionable at this point. In any event, you perform the above-mentioned circular swing with the R1 button, and you can do this an unlimited number of times. The only drawback to doing this seems to be the lengthy windup and recovery involved. The X button, meanwhile, functions as a sort of jump, albeit one that doesn't let you clear any distance. Rather, it lets you dive in any given direction while shooting your gun, in a move that somewhat resembles what the protagonist from Namco's upcoming Dead to Rights does. Finally, hitting triangle will shoot your smart bomb, of sorts, which, in the E3 build, consisted of the rocket shell being fired from the nose of your coffin case. There are a very limited number available to you at any given time; basically, the more you kill things, the bigger the meter on the interface gets. Once it's full, you'll get to use your special once.

The level on display at E3 was quite linear, and the enemies themselves were fairly easy to mow down en masse. The visual presentation was looking very sharp, though, which makes us hope that all the neat features that have been announced do indeed pan out. We'll have more on Gungrave as soon as it's available.