Huxley
Preview
A great find for all those FPS fans who have envied their RPG player friends and their MMORPGs
by William Thompson
previewed on PC
An FPS conquers MMO world
It is not every day (yet) that we see a MMOFPS arrive on the market, but with Webzen's forthcoming title Huxley, that will no doubt begin to change. Huxley takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have mutated and become divided into two opposing races. These races are the Sapiens and the Alternatives. At the centre of the battle between the two tribes is the precious resource known as Lunarites.
Look at the Huxley environment...
Most of the action in Huxley takes place inside a futuristic city landscape. And from what we've seen so far, the graphical detail of the locations is top-notch. The cities have a dark feel about them as you'd expect from a game set in a post-apocalyptic world and are superbly rendered. A blend of Eastern and Western cultures can be seen in various parts of the city. The use of lighting and shaders definitely shows as water shimmers and metallic structures glisten when the sun shines upon them. Shadows are cast from lifeless and moving objects in great detail.
Also the characters have also been brilliantly illustrated. Both the player and non-player characters are depicted in great detail, with rippling muscles, facial expressions and body armour given the most meticulous treatment. We haven't heard about the system specifications required to run the game at the level that we've seen, but I'm sure a Pentium 2 with 16Mb video card won't be enough.
OK... it's a FPS... so what about the weapons?
Naturally, there will be a large variety of weapons to choose from. But as with all FPS or MMORPGs, the better weapons are obtained as you "level-up". The weapons include the Discodia Assault Rifle which can fire up to 600 rounds per second, but has limited firepower against enemies who wear enhanced armour, the Mirage Viper which is a sniper rifle and deadly accurate but can only fire one round at a time, and the Collien Bleach which is a personal rocket launcher capable of firing two rockets per second. One feature of the weaponry that seems interesting is the ability to head off to a marketplace and trade weapons. If a gamer has "levelled-up" and has access to superior weapons, they can trade those superior weapons with team members who have not yet "levelled-up" enough to gain the weapon.
Getting to where the action is.
As with most FPS you'll be doing a lot of walking. But that doesn't mean that you will be walking everywhere. A number of vehicles will be available for use within the Huxley world. Vehicles such as motorcycles will be available for the individuals, whilst Armoured Personnel Carriers and Tanks will be available for the squads of collaborative gamers to move around in. If you aren't able to find suitable transport, the city's transit system will be available, with trains taking gamers to wherever they want to go. It doesn't stop on the ground either. There will also be a number of aircraft which will become available through the course of the game. And water-based craft will also be used, as spawning players will be brought to the Huxley world from a 'spawning-island' away from the main Huxley city.
I've got my weapon and my transport... who do I shoot?
The Huxley world, as mentioned earlier has two main combatants, the Sapiens and the Alternatives and each of these are further divided into distinct sub-races. And your choice of warrior will affect your gameplay somewhat. One group of Sapiens (which are more like humans as we know them) will be able to make better use of advanced weapons and vehicles, whilst one of the Alternative groups will be specialized in heavy weapons and be heavily armoured.
Apart from the Sapiens and Alternatives who will be battling between themselves, there is also a non-playing races known as the Hybrids. The Hybrids will be used as a way of completing numerous quests. The quests will improve the character's experience and treasury. The quests would seem to run like a typical FPS where the gamer takes on the NPCs, and winning would mean the quest is completed. But completing the quests by shooting a ton of Hybrids will not get you far in Huxley. In fact, once you reach a certain level, you cannot advance to the next level until you increase your "rank". And the rank is advanced in player-vs-player battles, which is where MMO really kicks in. Increased rank will enable gamers to form teams, give orders and arrange strikes. Player-vs-player battles take place in what are called Battle Zones. The developers expect to have more than 100 players fighting in a zone at any one time.
Conclusion
From what we've seen so far, Huxley is very impressive. The graphics are amazing and of the highest quality. The Unreal Engine being used in the development of Huxley seems to be used to its utmost. The experience and ranking system is different from other MMOs and could work well. The ability to trade weapons between team members is a really interesting feature which we'd like to see more of prior to release. Overall, Huxley looks as though it could compete with the leading first-person shooters and could even rival other MMOs for popularity.
Huxley was scheduled for a Q3 2006 release (in the US), but it is more likely to be released sometime in 2007. Huxley will be available on the PC and Xbox360 platforms.
