Kameo: Elements of Power

It's been in development longer than Kikizo has been sexually active. Now that Rare's elvin princess has made it to Xbox 360, does it still turn us on in this comprehensive review?

	Version Xbox 360	Developer Rare	Publisher Microsoft	Genre Adventure

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Are the next generation of consoles here already? It seems only a short while that we were feasting on the impressive visual display offered by the original Xbox, memories of Dreamcast and N64 slowly maturing in my mind. Seemingly out of nowhere, we're now holding a wireless controller, there's a sleek white box next to our HDTV, which in turn, is displaying the most gorgeous, clear picture of a young lady, who is standing in snow so fine that we almost feel the air condensing on the windows.

A new console, as they say, is only as good as its games. We cherish our memories of Riding Yoshi in Super Mario World, being chased by a whale in Sonic Adventure and experiencing Legendary in Halo. Not pressing the disc tray button on a PS2, or almost keeling over carrying the new Xbox up the stairs. Could this heavily-polished adventure game from Rare possess more gaming memories destined for immortalisation?

Kameo: Elements of Power puts you into the elf-boots of our pointy-eared protagonist Kameo, who using special powers inherited from her royal mother, can turn into various 'Elemental Warriors'. In a structure similar to the Zelda games, players must endeavour to rescue Kameo's kidnapped family from her evil sister Kalus, who has awakened the evil troll king Thorn and started a big war between the elves and the green guys. It's a bit like a fairy tale, except you can put The Prodigy on your custom soundtrack.

Starting off on the GameCube, Kameo's development saw its heroine as a naïve fairy-girl dressed in pretty white and purple, but after Microsoft turned up, Kameo got more extreme - first slipping into a more comfortable Xbox green, before popping down the tattooist for some tribals. Now, on the ever-so-sexy Xbox 360, Kameo is looking better than ever. The development team at Rare claim that they've done nothing but polish the game for a solid six months - and it shows, with more graphical effects than a George Lucas flick.

Throughout its development Kameo has always showed promise. Through our various E3 play impressions you can see that we were already bowled over by the wonderful combat system displayed in the Xbox version, which is now unsurprisingly even better on the Xbox 360. By moving the game over the 360, there are a number of sections left-over which feel like the remnants of a last-gen game, but the stunning graphics and awe-inspiring orchestral soundtrack more than make up for the wait.

The game kicks off in a dark fortress deep in the troll homeland. Hundreds of dragon-like creatures fill the sky as far as the eye can see. The environment seems to stretch for miles into the horizon; clouds of particle effects cloud the screen wherever Kameo moves and every individual cobble-stone reflects light and shadows, thanks to Rare's paralax mapping technique. It may sound like we're sitting on a hefty pile of Microsoft's cash, but the Xbox 360 truly brings this fantasy world alive like the first Xbox never could.

In the first of a few Metroid style gameplay nods, the player starts off with three powered-up Elemental Warriors to play with, sampling what's to come before losing the Warriors in an attack at the end of the level. The three are Chilla, Pummel Weed and Major Ruin, who can be assigned to the X, Y and B buttons. The first, Chilla, is a hulking gorilla-like creature who can scale walls, throw spears of ice from his back and pick up enemies and use them as clubs. Pummel Weed is probably the most classic style of combatant out of all of the Warriors; he punches both left and right using the respective triggers and he can go underground for devastating upper-cuts. Finally, Major Ruin is an armadillo who zooms around curled up into a ball - in this form he can fly up ramps and half-pipes, again in the style of the aforementioned adventures of Samus Aran.

What we really love about the warrior transformations is that you can see Kameo inside of them, animating the creatures. This was one of our favourite visual cues from the original GameCube version which mysteriously disappeared in the days of Xbox development. Rare has wisely made our tattooed lady-friend useful in the means of travel, so there's always a reason to change back to Kameo's original form, apart from trying to look up her mini-skirt. She can use her wings to jump short distances, and hover around the land at great speed. She is excellently animated and brings a lot of charm to the game, in cold environments for example she'll shiver and warm herself up.

Kameo's mission to save her family from the various locations they've been held kidnapped. This is structured in a Zelda style "dungeon" fashion, where Kameo will have to solve puzzles and fight through hoards of enemies before reaching the inevitable boss battle at the end. Accompanying our elf hero on her journey is Ortho, an old man held inside an ancient book who is desperate to be helpful. Luckily the voice actor in the role is one of the better from the game's cast and keeps the character's unhesitant requests to help from being too annoying. However, if you'd rather hear the Crazy Frog than this dude, his advice can be turned off completely.

Throughout the game, Kameo will gain new Elemental Warriors through hunting down Shadow Trolls who have their 'Elemental Sprites' trapped inside of them. Elemental Sprites are the cute animal form of the Elemental Warriors (because Rare couldn't make a game without sticking cute, big eyed animals in there) and can be absorbed by Kameo after she has successfully nutted the respective Shadow Troll in a mini-boss battle. While there is enough variance as the game progress to keep the battles from becoming repetitive, the formula of killing fodder enemies and then shooting light at the Shadow Troll Essentially stays the same. Other Elemental Warriors are given to you by rescued family members, in a fashion that is slightly less epic than your Nan doing the laundry. We would've preferred to have gained the Warriors in more compelling means.

The 'dungeon' locations in the game are designed well with a good variety in both location and enemies. Whilst not as lengthy as similar games in the genre, they offer an assortment of gameplay whether it's defending a giant walrus or swimming through an under-water temple. Perhaps wisely the game doesn't throw too much of a story at the player but the game obviously has a rich background story laid-out. Various quotes from the game lore are displayed during loading sequences - which by the way, are usually over too quickly to read.

The hulking bosses are just as big and beautiful as you'd expect, offering some awe-inspiring encounters. Thankfully, they do not always follow the same tired boss formulas we've seen reused since the 16-bit days; Kameo offers some inventive methods to dispatch the boss enemies, harnessing the Elemental Warrior's various unique abilities.

Our favourite boss fight was definitely the gigantic robotic troll, fought amidst the fiery pits of Thorn's castle. The graphical effects at work in this sequence bring gaming even closer to the "Toy Story ambition" - the gorgeous visuals actually bring exciting emotions to the boss battle - when this guy swings his mallet at you, you can almost feel it. By dodging the robotic dynamo's colossal hammer, and using a new Warrior's abilities, he's eventually defeated, but we will always remember him for looking so cool.

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