Esotropiart

There's no better way of being introduced to a new system or game than with my good ole friend, Jubbadisk. He came over last night and brought along his relatively new XBox 360. Since I witnessed the console's debut a few months ago, I was somewhat skeptical of its abilities. I had seen some game screenshots in video game magazines and wasn't overly impressed. I thought, "Couldn't they have made this game on the regular XBox?". Seeing the graphics in motion on screen, however, put all my doubts to rest. The XBox 360 is clearly a far superior system, not a minor upgrade.

As with virtually every new video game system, the arrival of new game titles is a little slow in the beginning. I suppose it takes some time for the game makers to adapt to the new system and learn to take advantage of its new tricky technology. To be honest, there are not a lot of games out that appeal much to me. I'm not really into sports, racing or first-person shooters (especially the brutally violent sort). These always seem to be some of the first to be made for any system. So I wait for a few good action/adventure games to release before my interest is peaked.

One such game that I was privileged to peek at is Kameo: Elements of Power. Jorb showed me this game briefly, demonstrating the morphing ability of the main character and the apparent smooth gameplay. The gist of the story involves a conflict between elves and trolls. Kameo is daughter of the elvin king and must discover her destiny, save her people and defeat Thorn, the evil troll king. Her most powerful weapon is the Element of Power, which allows her to morph into 10 unique creatures, each with abilities that must be wisely used throughout the game.

If I had an XBox 360, Kameo would probably be one of the first games of choice for purchase/play. However, I don't make it my business to keep up with the latest VG systems. Until recently, the most advanced systems I owned were a SNES, Sega Genesis and GameBoy Advance. A while ago, a friend indefinitely lent me his XBox, so I can play cool games like X-Men II - Rise of Apocalypse.

The entire game scenery and characters in Kameo are astounding, but there are a couple moments that are absolutely thrilling and unbelievable. Kameo mounts a horse and rides through seemingly endless fields of battling trolls, and infinite other junk is happening simultaneously. The XBox 360 handles all this geometry, textures, effects and intelligence without any slow-down or flickering. It is simply amazing to behold and proof that the 360 is leaps and bounds above all previously developed systems. Most of the games I saw rivaled some of the best fully-rendered 3D frames I have seen... yet on the 360, these pristine images are in-game graphics, moving around smoothly, without noticeable texture or geometry loss!