E3 2003: Vectorman Hands-On

Many console generations ago, a smoothly animated orbot known as Vectorman graced our 16-BIT Sega console to clear up planet Earth. Now he's back on PS2.

Vectorman's mission was to help clean up planet Earth after the human population ruined it with polution. With the human population having migrated to another planet until the cleaning job was complete, and the other orbots under some evil mind control preventing them from performing their cleaning tasks, it was all up to Vectorman to save the day. Which he did of course, before setting off on a long vacation.

After a long hiatus Vectorman is back, bigger and badder than ever. This time around he awakens on a non-Sega console and is probably wondering just what in the hell is going on.

In the latest chapter of the Vectorman series, Vectorman must free his oppressed land from the iron grip of the evil Volt, a robotic dictator hell bent on galactic conquest.

Armed with a wide array of upgrades, powerful guns and explosives, Vectorman will try to make his way through many danger filled areas guarded by Volt's minions and dismantle any of them that are dumb enough to get in his way. Eventually leading up to the final confrontation where he hopes to pulverize Volt and send him a one-way ticket to oblivion.

Vectorman was in playable form at Sega's E3 booth and Kikizo was there to welcome him to the next-generation as well as help him work out the rust that built up from being inactive for so long. Although the E3 build was quite early (30% completed) and a bit rough around the edges, the game still showed tons of promise.

The action was moderately fast and furious as we maneuvered ol Vecty through enemy compounds, busting through walls and taking apart enemy robots who without knowing, volunteered to be test subjects of Vectorman's many weapons of destruction.

The game controlled very well and even featured a dual analog control set-up. Vectorman could perform a variety of moves which consisted of running, strafing, shooting, throwing grenades, hovering, jumping, punching, lifting boxes as well as enemies and throwing them, a favorite move among the Kikizo gang. It was a lot of to punch an enemy's lights out then add insult to injury by hoisting them up into the air and throwing them against a wall, sometimes smashing through opening up a passageway.

Accessing your multiple weapons and special items was also simplicity at its finest. Using all four of the shoulder buttons, you can fire your weapons and use your special items as well as cycle through them quickly to find that special weapon needed for a particular job, like a rocket launcher for nailing faraway targets.

Graphically, Vectorman wasn't anything to write home about. Like we said before, the game was pretty early and didn't have much polish or shine to it. The texture work throughout the levels was pretty bland but we're hoping they were just place holders since the developers are still hard at work to make Vectorman's PS2 outing a memorable experience for gamers. The animations were pretty nice though with Vectorman and Volt's minions sporting some pretty smooth movements while running or getting knocked around. Punching through stacks of boxes revealed the game's cool physics as they all reacted accordingly by falling and rolling around just a bit, or hitting the ceiling after a grenade blast and then crashing to the floor.

The character designs? Well, we weren't too crazy about Vectorman's new design. Don't misunderstand, he looks good, pretty good actually, but we kinda miss the Vectorman of old, whose entire body was made up of detached orbs/spheres. Now, he's a fully attached soldier of destruction with a form that's closer to humanoid than orbot. Which leads to the question; Can we still refer to him as an orbot even though he's not made up of orbs anymore? Er, probably not.

Another problem with the earliness of the game was the almost empty environments at times. There weren't very many enemy characters to battle in the E3 build, and coupled with the bland textures, didn't make for an impressive looking game, but despite that, the game engine seemed to be a potentially solid one. The environments were pretty cool in that they were highly interactive with many walls, structures and other objects you could blow apart. You can take down enemy towers with well placed grenades or even blow right through walls to create quicker and more direct pathways to your destinations. During all the mayhem, the frame rate remained consistent and never seemed to dip at all, but considering the near emptiness of the environments, that's not saying much.

The sound effects were pretty good with every weapon fire, punch, throw, thrown grenade, and explosion sound registering pretty clearly. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be any music in the E3 demo so hopefully Sega won't forget to include some, hehe.

What little Vectorman had to show, we enjoyed. Sure it didn't have many bells or whistles yet, but for an early title, it played pretty well and showed lots of promise. Vecty didn't have the same spherical look we grew to love back in the days of 16-bit technology but that's part of his evolution.

Fortunately the game's difficulty level wasn't nearly as hard as the 16-bit originals, and with Sega's trademark game play magic the end product will only get a lot better by the time it's released in early 2004.

Joseph Jackson
Staff Writer, Kikizo Games