Infinite Undiscovery

Infinite Undiscovery's title may be misleading. It's not that you won't be discovering anything-just that there is so much to discover, you may not find it all, according to producer Hajime Kojima.

At Tuesday night's Xbox 360 event in Tokyo I was able to get a good look at the game, but was whisked off to the interview before the line had gone down enough to get my hands on it.

The demonstration took place in two parts, the first of which kicked off straight from the menu screen into a new game. The main character, Capell, bears a striking resemblance to the real hero of the story, a warrior named Sigmund. In fact, the similarity is so strong that he has not only been imprisoned, but a tomboy called Aya has come to rescue him! Unfortunately, Capell is such a wimp (a flute player, actually, not that we harbor anything against them) that Aya has to practically beg to rescue him, claiming she won't get a good night's sleep if he doesn't come along, "Just be rescued for my sake!" How will this character ever muddle through an adventure if he hesitates to even pick up a sword?

There are some indications! First of all, many encounters are "situation battles" which means there is a specific objective to meet, like searching a cave or traveling across a desert while avoiding sandstorms. Capell does wield a weapon in the real-time battles, and is plenty capable of kicking ass, but sometimes the situation actually requires that you flee. This was the case in both major fights in the demo.

In the first scene a big ogre with a nasty jiggling belly chased Capell and Aya around the prison. By using a special "connect action" power with Aya, you can shoot arrows to blow up barrels, killing enemies and clearing obstacles faster than with sword, enabling you to continue running just out of reach of the monster.

Those barrels are apparently an example of one of the undiscoveries waiting to be found-things the player can interact with and take advantage of, or not. Another example we saw was how you can swipe at the ogre's hand to knock him off the balcony as he's climbing up after you. Hopefully some of the interactions will feel a little more secret--these introductory ones felt a bit too obvious to deserve the fancy term "undiscovery."

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CoD4Rocks

This looks pretty awesome, is that kojima related to MGS kojima or is that just a comman name in Japan?

Kosmonova

CoD4Rocks Posted at: 06/12/08 at 4:23 PM PST This looks pretty awesome, is that kojima related to MGS kojima or is that just a comman name in Japan?
Hideo Kojima is the producer of MGS, not Hajime. And yes, Kojima is a common name.

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