Game Scoop: POWDER: VENGEANCE PROPHECY

POWDER: VENGEANCE PROPHECY
DEVELOPER: MASSIVE CORONARY STUDIOS
RELEASE DATE: SPRING 2007
PLATFORM: PC, X-BOX 360

This year's E3 was full of huge announcements, everything from the PS3's motion-sensing controllers to NCAA Football 2007. With all these big stories, a lot of smaller games tend to fall through the cracks, even if they promise to change the very face of the industry.

Games like Powder: Vengeance Prophecy.

Developed by Melbourne-based Massive Coronary Studios, Powder: Vengeance Prophecy is a game based on the hit 1995 film about an electric albino hailed by critics and audiences alike as, "an uplifting, heartfelt, must-see film... even though it was directed by a convicted child molester!" When asked why they chose to adapt an eleven year old movie into a game, Greg Scoom, producer of Powder: Vengeance Prophecy, tells us, "A lot of older movies are being adapted into games these days because gamers are starting to realize that games adapted from current movies always suck. But Powder is totally a great movie, and is really timeless. Who doesn't watch this movie and think how cool it would be to have all those awesome electrical powers? I know I do! Now fans will get the chance they've been waiting for!"

Vengeance Prophecy acts as a sequel and the story picks up directly after the film ends. For those that have seen the movie, you will remember (spoilers ahead) that story ends with Powder being hit by a bolt of lightning and disappearing, presumably dying. Greg Scoom explains how the game's story deals with this, "Well, as you know, the movie ended with [Powder] getting hit by lightning, but when you play the game you find out that the collision of the lightning bolt with Powder's electromagnetic field didn't kill him but actually opened a hole in space-time and sent Powder rocketing into the distant future. We like to think that the movie was always intended as the beginning of a saga, even if the director and producers denied that when we asked." The game begins with Powder awakening in the year 2099, only to find the world is now controlled by a corrupt totalitarian government led by a mysterious figure known only as Mister President. Powder joins an underground resistance and uses his electrical powers to fight the One World Government's secret police force, and eventually reveal the secrets of the future in order to topple the oppressive government Mister President has created.

"It's very heavy material for a game to tackle," says Scoom, "We're used to the stories in our games being about rescuing princesses and what-not, but we felt we could take storytelling in games to a new level, just like Powder did with film. It's a very topical story, that deals with a lot of issues that we're facing in America today with freedom and stuff. Well, we're not facing these issues ourselves because we're in Australia, but we see a lot of stuff about America on TV."

Scoom mentions that they are in negotiations with some of the movie's stars to reprise their roles from the film, but so far no contracts had been signed. "Obviously they wouldn't be playing the same characters they did in the film because those characters would be dead by 2099. But for example, we are currently talking to Jeff Goldblum to reprise his role as the science teacher, only now he would be a computer hologram that his character from the film invented and put his mind into."

When asked about the gameplay, Scoom's face lights up, "Gameplay is a real passion of mine, it's my favourite part of most games! We're really trying to take the best parts of all our favourite games and put them into one package like never before. We're combining the balls out action of a third person shooter with the strategic aspects of a third person stealth game and the wide open world of a Grand Theft Auto game." Not only does Powder gain access to a massive arsenal of guns (including pistols, silenced pistols, machine guns and laser machine guns), Powder has an impressive array of supernatural abilities.

"We tried to keep his powers true to the film, while also making them fun to use, and throwing a few surprises in there too." Powder's abilities include Magnetism, which allows him to move metal objects (such as crates and barrels) with his mind a la Magneto, Lightning Blast, which he can use to shoot electricity out of his hand and fry enemy soldiers, Electro-vision, which gives Powder the power to pick up the electricity signatures of enemies and see in the dark (much like infrared goggles), Invisocloak, which creates a magnetic field around Powder that refracts light and renders him invisible to enemies, and Lightning-Time, which you can use to "make all the enemies move in super slow-mo while Powder dives through the air and blasts them away like in a John Woo movie." Scoom also promises a few surprise powers to be revealed closer to launch.

As if that's not enough, Scoom also reveals that the game will feature a complex hand-to-hand fighting system. "At one point in the game Powder will travel to Neo-Hong Kong, where he meets Xiang Qichau, an immortal who teaches him the art of wushu kung fu." Powder will be able to string together a number of graceful yet powerful combos as well as perform devastating "chi blasts".

"Powder will need all these abilities and more to survive the ruthless concrete jungle that is the future," Scoom adds, "When the One World Government discovers an ancient prophecy that points out Powder as a threat to them, they create a genetically engineered super-soldier to have all the same powers as Powder, except he's black, not white. They call him Black Powder and he is sent to hunt down Powder and the other rebels."

Although the version of the game we played had some issues with slow-down and pop-up (especially during the hoverbike race segment), and the two levels we were shown had no real geometry yet, and Powder only currently had one power implemented and was not yet animated, and much of the dialogue was still in Russian (the game's writer does not speak English, so he writes the dialogue in Russian and it is later translated into English), Massive Coronary still has a few months to iron these problems out. With a little polish, they have a sure hit on their hands!