Latest Previews
Street Fighter IV - Hands OnSpider-Man: Web of Shadows - Hands OnFamily Trainer - First Lookde Blob - Hands OnGC08 - Resident Evil 5 Hands OnUser Reviews
There are currently 0 User Reviews for OniWrite your own review for this game today and you will receive 100 Gamer Points.
Click here to register
oni Preview
Mark Simons
00/12/0000
Oni
Oni
5, 06, 2000
Oni is a third person action game for the PC and Mac, and it stars Konoko, who is a member of the elite Tech Crimes Task Force. Now you may be thinking that this is just another Tomb Raider wannabe, and yes it does feature a strong female lead and it is viewed from a third person perspective, but it is there that the similarities end. Oni is of a completely different style to that of Tomb Raider and its ilk, first and foremost it is an action game featuring a unique combat system that makes weapon based combat integrate seamlessly with hand to hand combat. At the moment the combat is the most impressive part of Oni, but more of that later as I want to talk about the rather cool setting and styling of Oni.
Set in the near future, 2032 to be precise, Oni is heavily influenced by Manga and you can see this in the graphical style of the game, as well as the plot. During the presentation not much was revealed about the plot of Oni, but we do know that it focuses on Konoko and her development as she goes through the game to discover about herself and the crime syndicate she is trying to infiltrate. Details beyond that were not revealed, but the games catch phrase is 'A dark future... An uncertain past... No one left to trust.'. This blurb for the game places more emphasis on the plot of the game rather than what you do in the game. This is Bungie wearing their heart on their sleeves as the plot of Oni is key to the game and is why the Manga style was chosen as it is very strong at portraying characters in a story.
Gameplay
When you see Oni in action you can see the Manga influence in the characters right through from the lead character Konoko through to the dangerous, but very cool, ninjas. As well as regular humanoid characters we caught a glimpse of some rather large mech characters that looked very interesting, as well as being a bit tooled up with weapons. The Oni game engine is impressive and completely separate from the game engine used in Halo. It allows for some impressive environments and nice looking characters, Konoko being made up of about 1300 polygons and other characters using around 800. The game environment is also suitably impressive, although not complete yet the game engine showcased some impressively large environments moving pretty swiftly. There were some odd graphical glitches, but we were being shown the first OpenGL build of the game so these were to be expected. Despite the fairly early nature of the game engine the animation of the characters was of a very high standard.
Oni uses interpolation for the animation of the characters, basically this means that animation can be smoothly blended into one another, with some impressive results in combat. The interpolation is also key to combining the weapon based combat with hand to hand, and Oni looks to do that very well. For instance you can run up behind a character, jump at them, disarm them, break their neck, grab their gun and shoot the enemy standing next to them, and all of this is done seamlessly and it looks very impressive certainly adding a new dimension to third person combat.
The control system is like your traditional first person controls with movement controlled by the keys and firing and aiming controlled by the mouse. Unfortunately we did not get a chance to play the game but the controls are as simple as they can be. Two mouse buttons control punching and kicking, or weapons if equipped, and they are context sensitive. For instance if you are running at an enemy from behind and you press punch you will jump around them and break their neck, whereas if you are directly in front of them standing still you will just to a straight punch. It is this ability to pull off complex moves with simplicity that could make Oni such a delightful prospect. It is also worth noting that all of the game characters have different styles of combat, reflecting their size and level of training etc. What was quite interesting was the implication that as the game progresses Konoko will become more violent as the game progresses and she learns more moves and more about her past.
Graphics
Whilst looking impressive at this stage I did have one reservation about the camera system. You see to get around the standard problem in third person action games of having the camera get trapped in a confined area, Oni will just make walls in the way of the camera transparent. This is implemented very well and does not let you see into areas that you have not been, but I just fear that it will take away the feeling of being in the game world that Oni has been trying so hard to draw you into. Although you did get used to it and it certainly benefited Oni in the combat aspect it was just a slight niggle for me.
Sound
Whilst the only demo we have seen featured no sound we have been assured by Bungie that it will be of the higest quality and will put you straight in to the world of Oni.
Comments
Apart from my minor camera quibble, Oni looks set to be an impressive game, it just remains to be seen if the plot and gameplay can be compelling enough to draw you into the dark world of Oni.
-- Mark Simons
