E3: D3 Booth Preview

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 06.09.2009

First Look: D3 gave me a tour of their booth featuring their latest offerings that kids and families will most certainly love.

Welcome back to 411mania.com's E3 coverage. On the final day of E3, the folks at D3 were nice enough to give me a tour of their booth and show me their newest upcoming games this year.

ASTRO BOY



Based on the new feature length CG movie due out this October from the classic anime and manga. The new Astro Boy game is essentially a classic style side-scroller game with 3D CG rendering and environments. There are a few different types of levels Astro Boy goes through. There are the regular platform type of levels, where Astro Boy must fight his way through rogue baddie robots and traverse through obstacles using his various array of built-in weapons, lasers, and . . . the BUTT CANNON! The version that was demonstrated for me was the Nintendo Wii version. The side-scrolling levels are very reminiscent of classic Mega Man gameplay.

Then there are the flying levels, which again are 3D rendered, but the actual gameplay when Astro Boy is flying is similar to something like the Gradius series, basic 2D aerial shooter style. Astro Boy will be released on the Wii, PS2 (yup!), DS, and the PSP this October.

THE SECRET SATURDAYS: BEASTS OF THE 5TH SUN



If you aren't watching the awesome Cartoon Network cartoon, The Secret Saturdays, you should be. Drew Saturday is full of win, and she's hot. The new Secret Saturdays video game, Beasts of The 5th Sun, is a new action/adventure platformer that centers most of the gameplay around the Saturday clan's precocious and troublemaking son, Zack. Zack is armed with his staff THE CLAW, which helps Zack in his powers in influencing and hypnotising cryptids, which the Saturday family studies and tries to keep secret from the world while the nefarious Argost seeks to summon the cryptid Kerr to take over the world. In this game, Argost and his forces have destroyed the Saturday's "Cryptid-pedia" and the Saturdays must re-document all the Cryptids.

The D3 people ran me through the demo for this game which was the first stage. Van Rook invades the Saturday's HQ and destroys the Cryptid-pedia and a bunch of cryptids get loose. The game features new cryptids original to the game and an original story written by the show's creators. While most of the gameplay centers on Zack, gamers will also have the opportunity to play as Doc and Drew Saturday, Doyle (Drew's rebellious younger brother), and the family Cryptids including Fiskerton, Zon, and Komodo. Fiskerton helps you climb through the hard obstacles in certain levels. Since Zack has cryptid influence powers, there are also parts where you can take control of cryptids.

The game is also pretty much a sidescroller. The game features 3D, CG characters and environments, but a lot of the levels are done in a classic 2-D stage type of fashion. The game switches to 3D in arena battle type areas where you will fight groups of baddies. At the end of the demo, Zack faces off against Van Rook who tries to drop bombs on you so you have to bring him down and attack him. The Secret Saturdays: Beast of The 5th Sun is due out on PS2, PSP, Wii, and DS this fall.

BEN 10: VILGAX ATTACKS

Last but not least, I got a peak at the Xbox 360 version of the new Ben 10 game, Vilgax Attacks, coming later this year. This is based on the Alien Force seasons of the show, and this is the first Ben 10 game where you get to transform as all 10 of Ben's alien alter-egos . . . but there's no Alien X unfortunately. This is a 3D action/adventure platformer. All the designs are accurate and and faithful to the series. Ben even shouts his transformation names after using the omnitrix. In this new game, Ben has to travel to the home planets of his specific alien transformation species and thwart the plot of the villainous Vilgax. The demo featured Ben on Humongosaur's home planet. The game is more than just a simple action adventure platforming, as the demo showed there's a good deal of puzzle solving in getting past certain stages. There wasn't a ton of action in the demo, but that will hopefully be included in the final versions.

The cool thing though is definitely that you get the pick of all 10 of Ben's alien transformations, and you can maintain the transformation for an unlimited amount of time. And even Ben gets to fight a little this time. The new Ben 10: Vilgax Attacks game will be released on DS, Wii, Xbox 360, PS2, and PSP later in the fall.