Hands-on: Sega's Outtriggers

TOKYO - Outriggers is Sega's newest Naomi arcade game, which was put to the test on location in Tokyo this past weekend. We were lucky enough to get a glimpse and play a little of this first-person shooter.

Chris's Impressions:

While I'm not a fan of first person shooters at all, I was surprised at how fun Outtriggers wass to play. Dubbed a “Virtual Survival Game” by Sega, it plays much like you'd expect an arcade version of Quake to play: detailed levels that are small enough to keep you and your opponents in close quarters at all times. But I'm getting ahead of myself…

When you first put your US$1.50 in the machine, you choose between playing by yourself, or playing with opponents (up to three others). If you choose to play by yourself, you go through various test stages, where terrorists will pop up or run by you. Shoot enough terrorists in the allotted time and you'll move on to the next arena. I'm not sure if there's anything after these test stages, like full-fledged levels because we did not see any of that.

You can also choose between two different control schemes. The first limits how far you can aim vertically. The second gives you total control. A joystick controls your movement along the ground, and a trackball controls your eyesight (like a mouse look). There's also a jump button, which you don't have to use, but it can help you escape from enemies. Weapons included a heat-seeking missile, mines, bombs, and an array of machine-guns and bazookas. You can collect health and ammo points throughout each stage, but it did not look like you could collect weapons. One thing you could collect was a thermoscope, which helped you detect enemies by sensing their body heat (which you could see through obstacles as an orange silhouette of the enemy. The weapons you have are automatically all in your arsenal, selectable by pressing a button on top of the joystick.

There are four main characters in the game, three guys and one girl, if memory serves.

In multiplayer, it didn't seem like you could select which arena you fought in, but there were about six different ones, from a castle (which was very cool) to a city. Arena selection seemed to be random. While the arenas were small, they're very detailed, with the castle level being the coolest-looking. Each level seemed to have its fair share of stairs, bridges, boxes, obstacles, and hiding places.

In the version we played, you could choose from two different viewpoints. One was very much like the Quake/Duke/Doom/Turok style where you see just your gun in front of you, the other a more third-person view. It actually felt a LOT like Virtual On, but with a trackball instead of another joystick to control.

Since this is a NAOMI title, maybe Sega will eventually bring this game to the Dreamcast. If that ends up being the case, I hope the multiplayer mode is intact. This game is screaming to be done as an Internet game on the DC. If it doesn't have that, I'd be pretty disappointed. There wasn't a team name associated with the game (no AM2 logo anywhere to be seen), but even though the game is very detailed, there should be a way to bring it home.

Sam's Impressions:

All I can say is “wow.” I did not expect to see a Quake style deathmatch title on test in Japan, and more importantly, not one of this caliber. Having been hooked on Quake 3 on the PC for the past few weeks, I've come to label that as the finest multiplayer deathmatch title currently out there. I'm happy to report that not only do we have a new entry into the genre, but that it could quite possibly dethrone Quake 3 from its status. Here's why:

First off, the controller. Having a trackball to control the direction you face is absolutely incredible…once you get the hang of it. It seems awkward at first, but once you get it down you'll find that the trackball is one of the best additions Sega could have made to deathmatch gaming. The trackball coupled with the joystick make for a great control combination – strafing is a breeze and precision shots are easy to pull off.

The arenas are great too. This is where Outtriggers really differs from Quake 3, as Outrigger's areas are much smaller than a typical Quake 3 stage – probably one-eighth the size. In Outtriggers you will never have problems looking for an enemy to hunt down, which I like a lot. The stages vary from simple open arenas to elaborate castles in which you'll have plenty of towers and what not to hide behind.

Outtriggers offers some pretty sleek weapons as well (some looking like they were out of Turok), but sadly I didn't get to try most of them. The one I did use most of the time (the rocket launcher) was quite the powerful beast – a tad more than the one in Quake.

I can see this game becoming a huge quarter muncher when it releases later this year. When you get four guys going, it becomes an all-out frag fest. The game gives you three minutes, and whoever gets the most frags in that time wins. I'm not sure what the winner earns after the match is over though – perhaps gets to continue playing? I'm not sure, as I never won. Apparently some of the other guys I had played against had been honing their skills earlier that day.

Outtriggers is definitely a name you'll be hearing a lot more of as the year progresses. From what I've played of the title so far, all I can think about is going back to play more. Sega could have yet another big hit on their hands with this one. Stay tuned for more details on the game right here on videogames.com soon.