E3 2003 –
Hands On
Seven Samurai
20XX is one of Sammy’s big titles for E3. The game is being developed by Dimps. Seven Samurai 20XX takes place sometime in the
future and is based on the movie with same name by Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa’s
son even helped with the game to make sure it didn’t tread too far from the
path Akira Kurosawa set with the movie.
In Seven Samurai
you begin playing as a character named Natoe, and
along the way he will meet six more samurai – completing the cast of Seven
Samurai. Throughout the game you only play as Natoe,
and you battle enemies such as beast-like humans, mutants, and the rest of
your typical dystopian enemies.
Natoe has both a Health bar and Guard bar letting
the player know how he’s doing, but there is also a percentage in the lower
left corner. This percentage represents how much of your special move you
have. Once it reaches 100%, you can press the L1 and R1 buttons together to
make Natoe pull out two swords. In this mode you
can unleash some devastating combos.
Both the
graphics and control are what you would expect from a PS2 game. Great textures
litter the maps, and the animation of the characters and enemies is very
smooth. The controls are responsive and allow for easy
gameplay. Seven Samurai 20XX looks to be a great hack and slash title
with a classic story. It is currently scheduled for release in Q4 of 2003.
