Child of Eden preview
Ubisoft Canada recently held an event showcasing two upcoming titles for Microsoft’s Kinect. Although the focus was on the upcoming Michael Jackon: The Experience for Kinect, it was Child Of Eden that was most impressive. The sequel to Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Rez (named after the Underworld song) looks spectacular. If you haven’t played Rez HD yet, we can’t recommend it highly enough, so hit up the Xbox Live Arcade ASAP. When boiled down to the essentials, Rez is an on-rails shooter with a focus on music, as you play a hacker infiltrating a computer network controlled by an AI named Eden with the goal to reboot it and avert catastrophe. What that description doesn’t convey is the almost trance-like state the player experiences when they get sucked into the world of the game.
Our time spent with Child Of Eden was similarly engrossing, and even surpasses its predecessor in many ways. While the ‘inside the network’ storyline continues, visually the game is more lush, replacing many of the vector outlines with vibrant colours. The blending of audio and video carries over from Rez, and playing it on Kinect brings even more to the game. Gone is the player avatar of Rez, replaced by a simple floral life circle, to further the level of immersion. The controls scheme is simple and quickly picked up as well. We got the hang of switching between the auto firing left and missile locking right hand very quickly, and the overall experience ended being that of a conductor of a cybernetic orchestra.
There’s no doubt that the Kinect brought something new to gaming, even though the titles so far have certainly focused more on the casual and family markets. Child Of Eden is a different creature, much like Rez before it. It’s not necessarily a hardcore gamer title, and the music and style are an acquired taste. After all, not everyone is a fan of the synthesis of J-pop and electronic/trance music and flowery visuals. That being said, it suited our tastes just fine, and the addition of Kinect controls felt like a natural progression. The only question that remains is whether the title will hold up under the scrutiny of a full-priced title release when it comes out this June.
