Face of the 360?

By Plagiarize

It’s time to join me once again for another op-ed piece of speculation and presumption. No, not really, it’s time to talk about the face of the X-Box 360. Like Master Chief on the X-Box, the 360 needs a character to come along and be the poster boy for the console. Master Chief won’t be along for a while. Madden’s rosta of football players are everywhere. The characters in the various war games may as well be faceless. Joanna Dark is looking like she’ll be late to the party too, or the game will be overly rushed (based off of hands on opinions of the title from just a couple of days ago). The Oblivion avatar doesn’t even have a single name or face…

Who is going to step up to the plate? Who is going to be the hero or mascot that ushers in Microsoft’s next gen console? Which game is going to be the one that stands up and says ‘look… this is a platform offering not just new rich worlds, but new gameplay experiences’. The various sports, first person shooters and war games at launch offer unparralled realism, but don’t seem to offer gameplay that couldn’t be done on current hardware.

Yesterday, I pre-ordered my first X-Box 360 game. I’d seen enough of one title to convince me that I couldn’t miss out on it. The demonstration from a couple of weeks back that sold me on the game was half an hour long and of what looked to be a finished version of the title.

Of all the X-Box 360 titles one stands out as quirky looking. Oh it looks next gen no doubt, but only one launch title seems to be striving to use all that power for something other than realism.

That title is the one I preordered. That title is Kameo.

Lets not get anything confused here. The X-Box has lacked a title like Kameo. It never got an original, quality, platform title. It either had ports, remakes or exclusives that were on the shitty side like Blinx.

Maybe you think the X-Box doesn’t need a character platformer… and maybe you’d be right, but you have to remember that Microsoft isn’t aiming the 360 at the X-Box market. They’re going for the PlayStation 2 market, and they aren’t going to take it without at least one game that can nestle amongst the Jak and Daxters and the Ratchet and Clanks and the Sly Coopers. Those are all high quality platformers that have seen the PS2 the place to go for platforming goodness. Of this generation, I only know of two high quality platform titles that didn’t make it onto the PS2. Mario Sunshine and the Conker remake.

Microsoft aren’t going to take that market without one. So it’s fortunate that they seemingly have one. Let’s pretend for a moment, that Perfect Dark Zero doesn’t make launch. Microsoft will only have two second party titles on the 360, and one of them will be PGR 3, a game with no face.

Launch titles often help define a system. Mario 64 and the N64 are inseperable thoughts, just as Halo and X-Box are. Kameo seems an unusual pick for launch title, (heck, even if Perfect Dark Zero is a launch title, Joanna is undoubtedly much cartoonier than we’d expect from the X-Box branding) but it speaks volumes of those casual gamers Microsoft keep talking about. Platform games have that kind of appeal to the casual gamer…

Having started developement on the GameCube Kameo never seemed right for the big bulging black X-Box. Kameo herself is, after all, a fairy who can turn into animals. That’s exactly the sort of thing that people think of when they think of the GameCube.

She first showed up over 4 years ago at E3 in 2001, alongside Pikmin. Developement on the GameCube version of Kameo was thought to be in a fairly highly developed stage when Microsoft stepped in and bought Rare.

It’s possible that Microsoft were hoping that Kameo would be the platform mascot of the X-Box, showing Kameo on that system at E3 2003 and E3 2004. A lot changed from 2003 to 2004, Kameo’s character design didn’t change greatly, but her outfit did, changing from the purples and whites of the GameCube version into a more fitting grass green number. The environments they showed off at E3 2004 seemed a bit darker than those at 2003, closer to what’s expected on the X-Box.

The 2003 showing was very lackluster, the game not looking that different to it had in 2001 on the GameCube, undoubtedly a big part of sending Rare back to redesign things, and nixing the spring 2004 release date. It wasn’t the wrong move. Kameo didn’t look anything like an X-box title, technically or stylistically.

The X-Box fanbase would have no doubt shunned what was evidentally a GameCube port, and what didn’t even look as good as Rare’s last GameCube title Star Fox Adventures.

By 2004 it was looking better, but by then the X-Box’s branding and market share was unlikely to change. By November of that year, Microsoft and Rare decided to indefinately delay the title for reasons unrevealed at the time. Someone had decided that Kameo would be a much better fit for the X-Box 360 launch, and I think that person was completely right.

The X-Box 360 doesn’t have a user base, or a demographic right now. We know who Microsoft want to buy it, and Kameo is going to reach out to a lot of the people who didn’t see the X-Box offering them something to their tastes. Having it as a launch title helps the white 360 say ‘I’m more than just sports games and first person shooters’ from day one. That the title is looking polished and next gen in every sense is surprising, but welcomed.

That a game in developement for 4 years or so should look cutting edge on release is rare (no pun intended). Often when such games finally come out the gameplay looks dated. Kameo may not have streaming levels, something which is almost mandatory in the next gen, but it does have massively detailed worlds, parralax mapping, depth of field, great lighting and thousands of enemies on screen at once.

It’s this final addition that really sells Kameo as truly cutting edge. Not only does Kameo have literally 4000 plus characters on screen at times, but it’s more than a tech demo. Plow through them on a horse and watch as they scatter, either from impact or to get out of your way. Throw a cluster bomb into the pack and the resulting chaos occurs without stutter. No current system could dream of doing such things, and doing them so fluidly.

With Kameo you have a charasimatic lead, that is far from the X-Box’s portrayal of the feminine. No big bouncing breasts here. The X-Box was a teenage boy sipping shandy around the back of the bike shed at school, swearing a lot, watching porn and talking about how mature and grown up he was. By launching with Kameo (and Perfect Dark Zero if a miracle happens), the 360 is showing signs that it’s impression of platform games and how to represent women truly has matured.

It’s realised that magical fairy tale worlds are mainstream… and that girls play games too. They won’t turn their back on the X-Box fans, but if they can keep a steady flow of games with the style and artistry that Kameo displays, then they might just realise their dream and become the PS2 of the next generation.

Maybe the X-Box fan will look at Kameo and proclaim that ‘TEH 360 IS KIDAAAY! OMG!’… but they’ll soon forget about that once DOA 4 bounces along.

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