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Video

Launch Player

Call of Duty: World at War ³⁶⁰

White Gold ³⁶⁰

Preview

The Precursors

Format Xbox 360

Developer Unknown

Publisher Play Ten Interactive

Genre Action, Adventure, Shoot 'em Up

9-Jul-2008 The 360's first FPS/RPG/driving/space-flight hybrid

2 Comments

The game starts with you on an alien world with a group of similarly trigger-happy marines urging you onward. As you run and gun forward, your buddies are swallowed alive by monstrous plants. You move on, fighting bugs and robots before something unexpected happens. You wake up.

You're actually aboard a spaceship, explaining your bizarrely ominous dream to a woman. You're then deposited in a Mos Eisley-style den of iniquity located on a desert world and left to work out what to do next. There are plenty of bars and shops, women desperate for help, people hiring mercenaries, overseers who don't quite seem trustworthy, scientists worrying and... well, let's just say it's a vivid little world.

The step from the opening to the "real" game does make one point clear. Precursors is a first-person shooter, but Deep Shadows' definition of a first-person shooter is a lot wider than most would believe it to be.

Built with the same engine as the company's other game, White Gold, Precursors takes a Knights of the Old Republic-style setting and then lets you play through it in a Deus-Ex manner - that is, an FPS with role-playing elements.

The game is set in a galaxy of eight planets (four full size, four minor). However, there are a couple of changes from KOTOR. For a start, there's much more freedom to move between solar bodies whenever you want. And secondly, rather than just setting a destination and sitting back, when you blast off into space you're actually flying in your own ship, fighting pirates and trading with Space Stations. It's a bit like having a mini version of ancient classic Elite built into a modern game.

It doesn't just offer space vehicles though - on the surface there are a number of ways to get around the expansive environments. Buggies are fine enough, but the stand-out way to navigate in Precursors is by the towering exoskeletons who happily crush soldiers underfoot when they run out of missiles.
Precursors is a big game that asks some big questions, namely: "A linear FPS is a beautiful thing, but wouldn't it be glorious to have more?" It looks set to offer all that 'more' a gamer could desire...

OXM Staff