It seems like a story we're hearing more and more lately. Here is a game that Rare has been trying to put out for years now, beginning its life as a concept sheet for a Nintendo 64 follow-up to Rare's very successful Banjo-Kazooie, moved to the backburner for the sake of developing more sequels, and was to be born anew on the GameCube before Microsoft bought Rare; the objective failure of Grabbed by the Ghoulies probably made men in suits reconsider whether Rare should be making platform/adventure games or not. Finally, when the Xbox 360 was sent into development, Rare was handed the chance to make both a new Perfect Dark game and any other title they wanted. Finally, Kameo was given her wings.

Kameo: Elements of Power is unique in its genre-bending ways. It could be considered a platformer if you accept the more contemporary definition of the title – cute little heroes blowing enemies apart with engaging and creative weapons. Even still, that's not quite what we have here. You could also consider Kameo an action-RPG in the swing of Legend of Zelda in the way you add abilities and attacks to your repertoire. Whatever you consider it, it's these things for certain: a launch title for the Xbox 360, and a game made by Rare. Take that how you will.

This game exists in a fantastic world where two major factions live: elves and trolls. Kameo is an elf, daughter of the benevolent ruler of the elves who – until recently – had secured a truce between the mean green trolls and the kindly elven types. Kameo, being first in line for the throne, is given a great power. She can control and embody creatures known as "ancient warriors," somewhat-elemental characters who can pack a serious punch in a battle.

As the game begins, Kameo's sister has joined forces with the trolls and released a great evil in the land. Kameo's family is kidnapped, so she sets out on her own (sort of) to rescue them.

At this point, Kameo has the ability to transform into three different warriors, and right away you pick up on how they'll all be used differently to accomplish your goal. In a pretty unusual twist (forgoing the staple adventure game ritual of starting you off in a pleasant forest and slowly raising the tension), you begin the gameplay in a full assault on a castle bristling with trolls in an attempt to rescue Kameo's family.

Kameo herself is pretty helpless. She can perform a pathetic kick at the cost of some spirit points, so to be of any use she has to transform into warrior spirits. Each of these spirits has his own purpose, which becomes apparent almost immediately.

One of the three warriors you can become is Chilla, a powerful ice monster who can climb walls of ice, hurl icicles like spears, and grab an enemy and drop him onto the ice spikes sticking out of his back where they'll stay until you either throw them like spears, or use them like clubs. Loads of fun.

Another warrior in your arsenal is a walking flower who can jab faster than Ali and can burrow underground to bypass some obstacles, and a rolly-polly-esq creature who can roll into a ball to travel through pipes and launch off of ramps. You'd think all this transforming back and forth to solve each puzzle would become a bore, but it's exercised in a simplistic way that really makes you feel like you can do anything you want rather than forcing you to spill through endless menus before you can do anything cool.

After some pretty harrowing adventures in infiltrating this castle, you reach your kidnapped family just in time to get smacked around like a punk and have all your warriors taken away from you. You wake up at home, in a pleasant forest at last, where tension can slowly mount. A mystic explains that your warrior spirits are all gone, but you still have the power to acquire them, so if you want to rescue your family you'll have to bounce all over creation to find the "warrior sprites" (cute little animal critters that represent the warrior spirits you can absorb). All this, and a war has just been waged by the trolls on the elf territories. Watch your step.

And so the real heart of the story begins. You'll have to explore several themed environments, find the warrior sprites, battle the shadow spirits that are keeping them from you, use the warrior's unique abilities to proceed through interesting puzzles, fight gigantic boss monsters, and free all the members of your family. If that sounds mundane, at least there are no sacred rings or jems or jewels or triforce pieces to collect. In fact, the only things you really need to collect are gigantic berries that can be used to unlock or improve the abilities of the warriors you posses.

My favorite element (10 points for referencing the game's title in passing!) of the game is how brilliantly all of your warriors' abilities are used together not only to solve obtuse puzzles (that would be boring) but even to defeat some of the most basic of enemies. Shortly into the game, you'll encounter some trolls that carry giant wooden shields and hide behind them to block all of your attacks. Fortunately, you've got Rubble, a warrior made of a pile of rocks that he can hurl in any direction and have them magically roll back to rejoin his "body". So, you could chuck a rock up and over the shielded trolls, and when they roll back to you, they'll smack the troll from behind and open him up for an attack from one of your more assailant warriors. Small tricks like this are abundant, but the game never beats you over the head with them so you really start to feel like you're a star when you figure them out all by yourself.

Boss battles are even more elaborate. One of the first battles is against a giant tree who'll attack you with vines and shake trolls from his... err.. hair (leaves) who'll all gang up on you. You'll have to use your burrowing plant warrior to dig out explosive shells, launch them at the tree, and then when the tree starts laughing you have to turn into Rubble and shoot a rock into its open mouth to finally damage it. If this becomes too much to figure out, you can get guidance from your “wotnot” book, which also acts as your menu/inventory system.

As far as graphics go, well, it's hard to say – as this is one of the first games for the Xbox 360 and the only one that isn't trying to look photo-realistic. The adolescent or storybook feel of the environments are pulled off well, most characters are all very well-defined and some of the environments can knock your socks off with all that's going on. I'm sure in a few yearsthat Kameo's graphics will be the butt of many jokes, but they're a lot better than anything you'd see on the Xbox, definitely better than what we would have seen on the N64. As will always be the case with the 360, those without an HDTV will seriously be missing out on much of the graphical goodies. The bubbly, shiny surfaces of, well.. pretty much everything looks washed out and almost dingy on a standard television. Seriously, people, it's almost 2006. Smack down a thousand bucks on an HDTV bigger than you are and you'll never look back.

There are a few instances where the 360's power is really demonstrated, such as an early scene where you stumble onto a battleground where hundreds of trolls are attacking an army of elves. You're given a horse, which you use to (literally) plow right through the hordes of trolls. Something like that could be done on a current-generation console with some programming cheats or graphical shortcuts, but to see it pulled off with such ease on the 360 is breathtaking.

For all the time spent developing this game, it's disappointing to see some of the pratfalls so often seen in launch titles like these, which are obvious signs of development rushing to get the game out along with the system. Towards the end, the tight stitches holding the game together start to loosen. Boss battles go from intriguing to frustrating as the control scheme changes abruptly for later characters, environments start to lose their graphical flair, and the game ends just when you start to feel like you're in command.

You couldn't really call this game short, but with just over 10 hours of actual gameplay, it does seem to end before you'd think it would. Personally, I don't mind a short game as long as the ending feels as good as the beginning, so it's a small complaint.

There is also somewhat of a multiplayer mode. As you beat certain levels in the single player campaign, you can go through them with a friend, but it never feels as good as it should. A mode where you could battle against a friend with the warriors you've unlocked versus the warriors he's unlocked (a la Pokemon) would have been a really fun addition, or a time-trial mode where you have to get through various warrior puzzles before your opponent wouldn't be bad either. What we have now is just a last-minute addition to satisfy Microsoft's unwritten rule that every game allow for multiplayer without putting too many resources on it. 

This game is easy to recommend. If you're one of those people who follow Rare's career closer than Jessica Simpson's personal life, you probably already own this game. As pretty much the only non-shooter/non-sports game on the Xbox 360, you have to get this game just for the change of pace, if not for the fantastic platformer/adventure experience or the chance to show off your Xbox 360 to your less fortunate friends. This game may seem like an obvious choice if you're buying for a youngster, though it is rated "T" for Teen on account of all the vicious ways Kameo can dispatch of nasty Trolls. Also, perhaps, for the skimpy little outfit she (and all game heroines) wears.

Most aspects of the game are completely unique. Transforming feels clunky at first.

It's the 360, so it's better than anything else out there unless your pc costs two grand.

Engaging orchestral score is picture-perfect. Top-notch audio and voiceacting, save glitches.

Retro-style puzzles and engaging platform action cures the Madden-overdose.

Co-op mode isn't all it's cracked up to be. Fun to replay to see what you missed.

]]> Wed, 21 Dec 2005 18:24:00 -0600 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_kameo_elements_of_power_3601 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_kameo_elements_of_power_3601 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_kameo_elements_of_power_3601# This preview was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Matthew Call.

Kameo: Elements of Power began its creative process over five years ago. Originally slated for the GameCube, the game’s developer, Rare, was bought by Microsoft and the game was developed for the Xbox. The game was almost complete when Rare decided to switch consoles once again, this time to the Xbox 360. After years of development, Kameo is expected to be a launch title for the 360 and should be on shelves later this month.

The protagonist, Kameo, is an elf who has the unique ability to shape-shift into 10 different elementals of power. These elementals are based on the elements of plant, water, fire, earth, and ice and are unlocked as the game progresses. Kameo, with her elemental forms, must challenge her evil sister and restore goodness to the world by battling evil trolls, orcs, and other creatures across the various levels of the game. Much of the gameplay involves the use of these elementals to solve various puzzles and eliminate the enemies who are attacking the peaceful inhabitants of Kameo’s world.

The various elementals in the game are all very distinct. The first elemental Kameo uses in the game is Chilla, a blue furry giant with spikes on his back and arms. Chilla can pick up trolls and jam them into the spikes on his back, then take them off and use them as clubs against other foes in the game. Another elemental at Kameo’s disposal is Pummel Weed, who resembles a giant Venus flytrap with the boxing abilities of Mike Tyson. Rubble is a ball of rock that rolls around the level flattening enemies. In what is certainly a nice touch, enemies who are rolled over by Rubble will sometimes become flattened and stuck to the outside of the giant rock ball. Each elemental in the game starts off with a couple of basic attack moves and there are also four unlockable attacks awaiting the player’s discovery.

Where the game really shines is in the creative use of combinations of elementals. For example, players can hose down an area with oil using Deep Blue, a giant squid elemental. Once the area is thoroughly soaked, players can then shape-shift into Ash, a fire elemental who will quickly turn the oil into a raging inferno. There are several unique combinations of the 10 elemental abilities that can be combined to create interesting possibilities for problem solving as well as dispatching enemies. Rare also focused on allowing puzzles to be solved by using more than one combination of elemental, which means players will be able to solve the puzzles the way they want to, instead of being forced to play the way the game forces them to. 

The game begins in a “lobby” world, where Kameo can explore her abilities and choose which level to play. In addition to the regular game levels there are also four battlefield action quests, which are massive battles that Kameo can jump into at any time from the game’s starting level. These battles are enormous, with literally thousands of characters fighting on the screen simultaneously. Kameo can wander around and jump into the fray at any time to turn the tide of the battle in favor of her elven kindred. These levels really show off the horsepower under the hood of the 360 as games with thousands of characters on-screen at once have yet to grace the current generation of consoles.

Kameo’s graphics are cartoony, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t cutting edge. Water effects in the game are amazingly realistic and the game also features bells and whistles like bloom effects and heat distortion. Kameo also features a fully implemented physics system that allows the player to send enemies flying in a satisfyingly realistic fashion.

The single-player portion should take gamers anywhere from 25 to 40 hours to complete, depending on whether or not they decide to unlock all the bonus content. A co-op mode is available for players sharing a 360 and co-op play over Xbox Live is currently being developed and should be available at launch or shortly thereafter.

Kameo will be one of the games to have when the Xbox 360 hits retail shelves later this month. Although the cartoony graphics and semi-cute premise of an elf girl who can transform into different creatures may drive away some gamers, the innovative gameplay created by the combinations of elementals should make this title one of the more creative games to hit the market in recent years. If you’re planning on buying a 360 and want a slick, good looking game with an interesting premise, look no further than Kameo: Elements of Power.]]> Thu, 03 Nov 2005 16:09:02 -0600