Titanium Angels Preview

The "near future" is cliché. The term has quickly become another tired plot device used by game makers as a glorified excuse to dream up horrible variations of present-day life gone awry. All that chaos needs to assert itself on humanity are a few short years. Gone, apparently, are our complicated political situations and histories, as well as any long-held scientific laws. Granted, gamers may not be as discerning as the local book club when it comes to plot integrity in our games, but we know a scapegoat in a script when we see one. The problem is this: No gamer worth his or her salt can deny that explosive action, solid gameplay, and visceral graphics will pacify even the hardiest fiction tart among us. That's why Titanium Angels (clichés and all) looks very promising. Developed by Mobius Entertainment and produced by SCi Ltd, TA thrusts you in the role of a wild female mercenary, traversing a near future dominated by dictatorial factions, sentient artificial intelligence, and lots of bad guys with plasma guns.

You're Carmen Blake, a member of The Kindred, one of the many factions vying for control on a divided Earth. More specifically, you belong to The Titanium Angels, an all-female cadre of hardened mercenaries who are the corps d'elite of the cabal. The Angels are a fearsome group, and they only accept the toughest assignments at the highest prices. The game begins when you're hired to assassinate a rival faction dictator known as Furie. The assignment goes horribly awry, though, and your team is spotted. Your ride is torched, and your companions are killed. Somehow, though, you escape the carnage unharmed, and you have no option but to continue your mission. Shadowing Furie, you witness him disappear into a transporter. Going in after him, you find yourself warped off Earth onto a strange planet called Reath. The problem is, the ride's one-way. You, now stranded in this strange new world, must befriend the natives, uncover Furie's true identity, discover his true intentions for Earth, and devise a method to stop him. No one ever said saving the world is fun - or original.

Thankfully, Titanium Angel's rather uninspired story is compensated for with some unique gameplay features. Let's get one thing out of the way first - gameworlds are big and plenty, and Mobius guesses TA will provide more than 30 hours of solid gameplay. While control is like most third-person adventure titles, and combat is performed in the lock-on fashion and features a popular snipe mode, Mobius nonetheless manages to put a spin on the otherwise mundane. TA features a nonlinear method of character development: As you progress across the gameworlds, you'll have the chance to acquire items and accomplish feats that expand Carmen's range of skills and abilities. Also, Mobius has written a species biography (think back story) for the creatures of Reath. The guidebook will greatly assist your initial explorations on Reath. You'll learn, for example, that your compatriot, Titan, is the leader of the "Baki," Reath's native culture. Mobius intimates that enemies will also be listed in the biography, and, besides serving as a dispensable zoology lesson, you may be able to discern weak points and strategies for surviving alien encounters by reading about their habits and ways of life.

Mobius has also done its fair share to assure that Titanium Angels is no eyesore. Using a 3D engine that keeps polygon counts exceptionally high while adding frills like volumetric fogging and physics engine, TA can render a variety of environments. Also, like Quake 3, TA features bezier patching that lets the engine curve otherwise blocky surfaces subtly. Mobius promises that explosions and other special effects will be easy to write into the proprietary graphics engine, and that they should not only look real but also feel substantial. TA's characters have been given special care too, and they (like those in Half-Life) are animated using accurate skeletal vertex models that allow for plenty of unique motions. Titanium Angels should put the engine through its paces, as moments of quiet exploration can quickly turn into fierce melees, with enemies filling the screen. The lack of much detail in environments, though, is cause for concern; it appears that much of the vaunted graphical power is so far going to waste in what we've seen in early builds.

Titanium Angels features an advanced graphics engine, and, with a willful female heroine at the helm, there should be little problem drawing the initial crowd. Keeping the crowd entertained, however, is a different matter. TA's storyline and gameplay borrow liberally from other titles of the genre, and Mobius must successfully integrate unique gameplay features in a way that will make moments of exploration and adventure feel fresh and compelling despite superficial similarities. Look for Titanium Angels in the near future - the third quarter of 2001