Astro Boy

Sega's latest licensed game is here in the shape this super-duper flying action romp. Has Sonic Team done us proud or hit a low point? Lots of video included.

	Version PS2	Developer Sonic Team	Publisher Sega	Genre Action

By Joseph Jackson

If you've been following our extensive coverage of Astro Boy since last year, you'll know we've been impressed with it at every stage of its development. And with the game hitting North American stores just last week and the European release to follow some time later this year, we though the hell with waiting.

Originally created by famous Japanese manga writer, animator, and illustrator, Osamu Tezuka, Astro Boy - aka Atom - is a robot boy who flies using rocket propulsion and is enhanced with special abilities that make him the ultimate child-like superhero.

In his first PS2 adventure, Astro Boy has his work cut out for him as he tries to thwart the evil efforts of Dr. Tenma, a brilliant robotics engineer who was the former head of the Ministry of Science and - as screwed up as it sounds - Astro Boy's creator.

After losing his son in an automobile accident, Dr. Tenma created Astro Boy - constructing him into an exact replica of his son - in order to try and fill the void left in his heart after his son died. Unfortunately, even science and technology have their limits, and after realizing that Astro Boy couldn't fill that void, he deactivated him, burned the Science Ministry to the ground and then vanished.

Later, the Ministry of Science was re-established as a refuge for robots in trouble and headed by a kind old man named Dr. Ochanomizu (Dr. O'Shay), who found and reactivated Atom, taking him under his wing and serving as a father figure to the rejected robot and even creating a sister for him in Astro Girl.

Under Dr. Ochanomizu's guidance, Astro Boy continues to fly the straight and narrow and battle against any threats that arise within Metro City.

It's not all flying fun and games for the mechanical boy wonder as he'll have to use every ounce of his strength and other special abilities to save Metro City from such evil-doers from the anime series as the Blue Knight, Acheron, Atlas, as well as Dr. Tenma.

At the start of the game Atom is in what appears to be the Ministry of Science - or Dr. Ochanomizu's workshop in Metro City. At this early stage of the game Atom is pretty powerless and hasn't developed any of his special abilities yet, so he's limited to just being able to jump, punch, pick up and throw items, as well as enter first-person view in order to manually scan nearby areas. Soon afterwards his rocket feet become active and he develops the ability to fly - and the real fun begins.

And flying through the wondrous game world that Sonic Team crafted for Astro Boy provides quite a thrill. The illusion of flight is handled quite well throughout the game and while it makes use of the Havok 2 physics engine (used in Half-Life 2 and Max Payne 2) to provide an immersive flying experience. The fact that Yuji Naka and Sonic Team - the creators of NiGHTS - were also the developers of this game only served to influence my theory that Astro Boy might be running on some sort of modifired NiGHTS engine! But while NiGHTS confined players to flying on rails through a series of dream worlds, Astro Boy features more free form flying within the barriers of a futuristic city. (See what the game's producer made of our com[arison with NiGHTS in this interview).

The game sports a dual analog control scheme to manoeuvre Atom while he's airborne. During flight, the left analog stick controls Atom's forward, back, and side movements, while the right stick allows him to climb and dive during flight, as well as land and re-activate his rocket feet to resume flying. While in the air he can interact with air vehicles and his moves consist of a quick dash that players can perform to dodge attacks, a spin attack that not only increases Atom's air-cutting speed, but can also be used in tandem with the auto lock-on system to quickly zip through a series of airborne "rings", smash through objects to reveal hidden items, and inflict damage onto enemies by smashing into them. Got all that? It's all much simpler in-game, of course...

On the ground, Astro Boy can run around within the barriers of the city and interact with all of the people, robots, and animals he comes across, sometimes acquiring items from them. What I found a little more fun is that you can be quite the mean little brat to them and throw objects, punch, or zap them with your weapons, startling the heck out of them and getting a tongue lashing for your evils.

Astro Boy gets to really show his stuff after developing the rest of his special abilities, allowing players to test out his 100,000-horsepower strength by lifting heavy objects such as vehicles, boulders, and enemy robots with ease, and flinging them against background structures or other enemies.

His other abilities include Supersonic hearing, X-ray vision, the power of analyzation, Digibeams (laser beams that shoot out from his finger), and an Arm Cannon that can do some real damage to enemies and background structures with a single blast. If you think it sounds like fun, you'd be right.

Metro City, while the central area of the game, also serves as some sort of hub that can transport Atom to other areas outside the main city, via portals that will open high above Metro City. When starting out, only one portal is open, transporting Atom to Dr. Ochanomizu's quiet home where he'll be able to meet with the good doctor from time to time, recharge his batteries, save his game, and interact with his sister Astro Girl.

Visually, Astro Boy looks just above average, and for the most part doesn't really seem to be pushing the capabilities of the PS2. The graphics are colorful, the character and level designs are good, not great, the textures are OK and the lighting effects consist of standard Sonic Team fare of bright lights and lots of lens flares.

In keeping with that, I'm not saying that Astro Boy never impresses in the graphics department. On the contrary, while the graphics of the earlier levels aren't much to write home about, later levels likes the lava caves show marked improvements with better textures, lighting effects and ample use of particles. On the downside there's some pop-up throughout the game and the frame rate tends to stutter quite a bit in well populated areas. Regardless, none of these issues really affect the enjoyment level of the game.

One area where Astro Boy truly shines is in the audio department. WaveMaster has come through with flying colors by providing a great soundtrack consisting of a number of classical sounding pieces and some very nice fantasy styled themes that fit the game perfectly. The daytime and nighttime themes of Metro City are especially worth mentioning because of their very catchy melodies and smooth grooves. The sound effects are also pretty solid and feature a variety of cool sound effects that would fit well in Saturday Morning cartoons.

As near-magical as the Astro Boy experience is, and though flying around a futuristic Jetson-like metropolis offers some cool boss encounters, Astro Boy is an amazingly short game - around 4 hours, give or take.

The majority of the game is spent traveling from Metro city to Dr. Ochanomizu's house and back, triggering events along the way that will pit Atom against some of Dr. Tenma's mechanical menaces.

Another complaint is that the sense of speed while flying is often a little slow, but other than that I absolutely love this game and am currently playing through the entire thing for the fourth time. Sonic Team fans should definitely check out Astro Boy - it's a surprisingly fun and immersive experience.