16-Aug-2003 There's good weird and there's bad weird. Good weird would be Jennifer Garner turning up at your door wearing a bunny suit and clutching a sachet of massage oil. Bad weird is the man who hangs around the supermarket car park with a copy of The People's Friend in one hand and his other hand rummaging in his trouser pocket.
Alter Echo is also weird. From what we've seen of it we're fairly confident it's going to go down the Jennifer Garner path, but you're going to have to be open to new gaming ideas.
Daisy Chain Of Death You'll have noticed that Alter Echo is odd-looking. See, the game takes place on a living, breathing planet called Proteus. While it may look fairly benign at first, there's some très bad stuff going down. Lucky, then, that your hero Nevin can shape-shift seamlessly between Stealth, Gun and Mêlée Modes and even chain attacks between them.
This is the real meat of the game, and where Alter Echo really has the potential to dazzle the most. Each of Nevin's physical forms has its own specific moves, and by juggling enemies into the air you can link attacks into devastating chains.
There are loads of upgrades for new attacks and combos to learn as you play, more than making up for the comparatively simple puzzles.
It's looking neat, and our only worry at this stage is the niggly camera - this needs to be sorted if it's going to win over doubters. Please make it good, boys!
So what is it that makes Alter Echo such a strange little duck? The visuals certainly transport you into a world where it's clear the laws of physics as we know them don't apply. But it's more than just the visual style. There's lots of ingenuity on display in all aspects of the gameplay. Take a looky here.
A violent and colourful death is this demon’s reward for crossing your path
You need to press R3 to activate Time Dilation to destroy multiple enemies at once
Leap onto enemies then morph into Gun Mode and they stick to your gun!
When you’re in Stealth Mode it’s possible to make yourself invisible for short periods
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