27-Jan-2003 Three lead characters, three styles of gameplay... shouldn't it be called 'Trinity' then? Anthony Holden hacks through the confusion
Done well, cyberpunk is a good thing. Think The Matrix, Deus Ex, Snow Crash... Done badly, it's one of the most heinous evils ever let loose on the world. Bleached ravers with gas masks and transparent nipple-shirts, cyber-goths in PVC strides and Matrix trenchcoats, Johnny Mnemonic... the list is long and exceedingly unpleasant.
As you can tell, the bad far outweigh the good. So you're right to be wary when I tell you that Duality is pure cyberpunk, a stylish tech-noir vision that pays homage to William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Mamoru Oshii - just about any cyberpunk name you can conjure. Normally, I'd be rolling my eyes and shaking my head right along with you about now, but this time I'm asking you to join me in a leap of faith: Duality is good cyberpunk.
PUNX NOT DEAD Or at least that's how it looks from here. To be fair, the game is still perhaps a year from completion and the developers aren't even letting us play it yet. We're only going on in-game footage, screenshots and chats with the team. But the reason we're so confident is because it positively reeks of cool. Despite being as clichéd as you like - the playable characters include a hacker and a virtual being, for chrissakes - it looks absolutely brilliant. And when you start comparing a game to the likes of System Shock 2, Deus Ex and Metal Gear Solid, you know something must be right.
We recently caught up with Aaron Rigby, producer on the game, to try and unravel some of the mystery surrounding Duality. First things first, let's get the Matrix comparisons out of the way... "The Matrix has been one of our inspirations, but not the main one. Our main sources of inspiration are books such as Neuromancer or Snow Crash and RPGs such as ShadowRun. We've also been influenced by movies and comics such as Ghost In The Shell and Appleseed and some stuff from Akira and Ronin. But we really want to give our personal touch to the genre."
Certainly some of these influences are very apparent. The more Aaron tells us about the storyline, the more similarities we notice with Neuromancer. The story begins in a futuristic New York-like city - steel grey skies, black rain, the whole works. You enter the scene as three distinct characters - a hacker, an infiltration expert, and a virtual being - each highly skilled in their own domain. All three are unwittingly caught up in a plot beyond their understanding, as CAIN, a new AI prototype, battles for its own survival, using the three as unsuspecting pawns. Ringing any bells?
The plot interweaves the stories of all three characters into a single integral whole, with control alternating between them for different missions. And this is where that personal touch comes in. Not in the setting or broad storyline, which are chestnuts straight from the cyber-pedia, but where it matters - in the gameplay.
VIRTUAL INSANITY Each of the three played characters has a totally different gameplay style from the others, and given the substantial RPG side to the game, each will also change considerably as their skills and abilities level up. Between them the variety promises to be immense. The Mercenary is based in stealth action, but as he collects money from jobs, he can get new cybernetic implants. He's kind of JC Denton meets Sam Fisher (see Three The Hard Way panel).
Perhaps less familiar is the Hacker character, who's involved in a more thoughtful style of play. In the real world she's all about hacking systems to find ways around enemies - essentially solving puzzles and setting traps. When logged in to cyberspace she's much more powerful, able to employ spell-like programs to attack her virtual foes. "The Hacker will fight many different enemies in the cyberspace," says Aaron. "These fights will be full of magic and special effects.
"The programs used will have to be configured in part by the character, which means that you'll essentially program your own weapons." From what we've seen it's a little like the rune system used in Arx Fatalis, where different programs can be combined to produce all manner of new effects ('projectile' plus 'fire' equals 'fireball', that sort of thing). The final character, the Virtual Being, is still largely under wraps, though Aaron says that he too has a totally different gameplay style.
PHREAKy styley In fact, so varied is the gameplay presented by Duality's motley line-up that Trilobite is finding it difficult to put a finger on what sort of game they're actually making. They're currently hedging their bets and calling it an "adventure/RPG/ action game with a serious message and deep storyline". A bit vague, but if ever there was a good sign of ambition and innovation in a game, it's when you struggle to pigeonhole the bugger for the marketroids.
For this and countless other reasons, our hopes for Duality are immensely high - expect a full hands on soon.
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