The game itself is a fusion of both the novel and the classic 1953 movie of the same name, with Sir Patrick Stewart serving as the narrator of the events. It's not like Bastion where the narrator seems to have a line for every-single-action in the game, but like that game, Worlds' narration serves to add ambiance to events taking place around the main character. And who better to provide this context than Stewart, whom I'm told was excited at the prospect of providing this narration to one of his favorite childhood stories. Apparently he reenacted the radio drama in his youth to refine his acting chops.
There's no denying that the game has a striking resemblance to Limbo, with its dark grays and blacks throughout the world and our hero traversing ever onward through these side-scrolling levels. Crumbling ceilings, hovering alien robots that shoot lasers (lasers!), and giant robots are just a few of the obstacles to avoid. The developers point to a series of other games that Worlds is drawing inspiration from like Prince of Persia and Out of this World. Like those classics, expect to play through a series of push and pull block puzzles along with a series of platform jumping segments.
And it's not just the giant walkers or crumbling buildings that the player has to avoid. Other staples from the novella such as the "Red Weed" and the "Black Smoke" will play integral parts in the level design. Two examples shown included smoke creeping through the building following the player (think the smoke monster from Lost), while the red weed works like the tentacles from Half-Life 2, reaching out to grab the player and pull them away.
While the style in design and audio seems intact, we still don't know how the game feels to play. Our demo was a hands-off affair. However, War of the Worlds appears to be fairly difficult and Other Ocean themselves admitted to dialing back the difficulty in recent months -- our hosts died repeatedly while showcasing a few of the levels. In doing so, they shined a light on an aspect that could get on my nerves when I play the game. While the spawn point locations seemed fair, every time the main character moved back through the level, there was Patrick Stewart's voiceover, again... and again. I understand it's probably a production issue (the team is in crunch mode), but it could be a small irritant to an otherwise good looking licensed property.
Spy Guy says: As impressive as the game looks it's a damn shame it's not coming out on PC the same time as the XBLA version. It would have been nice to play this around the Halloween weekend on my computer.
