Kameo: Elements of Power Hands-On

Kameo: Elements of Power has been in development for a long time now. It was one of the games that Rare was creating for the GameCube before that system even launched, and now that the developer is working exclusively on games for Microsoft, Kameo has naturally become an Xbox title. We got to spend a little time with some demo levels from the latest build of the game at Microsoft's E3 display and we came away fairly impressed.

Kameo is a pretty passive-aggressive character as action heroes go. She doesn't really have any attack moves of her own--rather, she can capture and evolve 18 monsters whose forms she can then assume, and these monster forms provide Kameo with attack powers to use against enemies. To gain a monster, you'll have to capture it in its juvenile form and then perform some monster-specific task to feed it and make it grow into an adult. Once you accomplish this, you'll have access to that monster from then on.

In addition to capturing monsters and fighting enemies, you'll do some puzzle solving as well. We played a short level where we had to plug up some holes in the ground inside a swamp that were emitting bog gas. To do this, we had to collect a musical flower and toss it at a tree with a particular hanging fruit attached. This noisy flower would summon a nearby giant ogre, who would charge the sound and knock the fruit down, allowing us to plug up the hole and complete the objective.

Kameo generally looks good, with bright, colorful scenery and characters and a solid frame rate. Judging from the three demo levels we played, it looks like the game will provide a pretty fun and diverse experience. We'll bring you more on Kameo: Elements of Power as it becomes available.