Kameo: Elements of Power Preview

By Rob Fahey Published 26 May, 2005

Which are hopefully more "pow" than "er".

Those onetime Britsoft gods at Rare have had a bit of a rough ride from the press in the last few years, and with some justification. Since Microsoft signed a gobsmackingly large cheque to add the studio to its internal development repertoire back in 2002, it hasn't exactly justified its price tag - producing only the fun but not exactly world-igniting Grabbed by the Ghoulies, and the forthcoming, foul-mouthed, Conker: Live & Reloaded. In what must be a bit of an embarrassment for Microsoft, if you wanted to play a really good Rare game in the last few years, the best place to do it was on Game Boy Advance.

J Allard has told us to be patient with Rare - but with Xbox 360 on the horizon, it's surely now time to deliver the goods? Perfect Dark Zero didn't exactly look hot in the early shots released last week - in fact, it was struggling to even look lukewarm - but I still hold out a hefty degree of fanboyish hope that it'll live up to our expectations, which is what the few people who saw it behind closed doors at E3 claim it will do.

And then, somewhat overshadowed by Joanna Dark's bombastic exploits, there's Kameo: Elements of Power, a game that's been redesigned so many times we've lost count, but which is now finally on the home straight and destined for launch early in the lifespan of the Xbox 360.

The idea behind Kameo is a slightly odd fantasy concept; you play as the eponymous fairy, capable of transforming into one of ten different creature forms to accomplish your (as yet unrevealed) goals. Each of those forms looks radically different and has different abilities as well as a different combat style - we particularly liked the pugilistic plant, which can drop down into the ground leaving only the flower on top of its head visible, and move around in that form, allowing Kameo to, for example, get past doors and gates with gaps underneath them.

'Kameo: Elements of Power' Screenshot 2

As you progress through the game, you'll also learn to chain attacks from different forms together into combos, so you might knock an enemy into the air with an uppercut from one form and then swiftly change form and fling icicles at it with a magical attack with another. It's a system that doesn't sound dissimilar to the way combat works in Bioware's Jade Empire, although we've yet to see how well it works in practice.

So far, this sounds largely like the Kameo we've seen before - but what the Xbox 360 version on show at E3 revealed was how Rare have used the power of the new console to give them some elbowroom to do cool new things with the game.

The graphics, as you might expect, look great, but the cartoonish style of individual models or environments don't look that much more advanced than what might be accomplished by a talented team working on the current-gen Xbox - albeit with some quite nice effects like making all of the creatures slightly transparent so that the player can see Kameo suspended inside them.

'Kameo: Elements of Power' Screenshot 3

Where the abilities of the 360 are really being applied, then, is in putting loads of things on screen at once. Since we last saw it, Kameo has not only developed a truly impressive amount of detail and action in its normal gameplay sections - one area high up on the battlements of a castle had orcs milling around, dragons swooping through the sky and some great atmospheric and combat effects to top it all off - but has also seen the addition of enormous battle scenes, with thousands of enemies facing off against each other and Kameo stuck in the thick of it. How many of these types of battles will be featured in the game - or indeed, what the top-level structure of the gameplay actually is - still isn't clear, but it certainly looks like the game aims to provide quite a welcome variety of different play styles.

It's not the best-looking Xbox 360 title we've seen, but Kameo sports a unique graphical style and very interesting looking gameplay which appears to have been spruced up significantly for its transition to next-generation. It should be emphasised that Kameo wasn't actually playable at E3, but rather was running in a real-time demo with Xbox staff on hand to explain the game - so it's certainly a bit too early to make any judgements, except that we're now a lot more interested in seeing what Rare have to offer for the Xbox 360 launch platter than we were before the show opened its doors.

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Comments (44) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Les #1 7 years ago

    "It should be emphasised that Kameo wasn't actually playable at E3, but rather was running in a real-time demo with Xbox staff on hand to explain the game - so it's certainly a bit too early to make any judgements"

    Wow, the "Eurogamer is biased" rants sure made Eurogamer more careful. It will probably not be for long before each article will feature a legal statement at the bottom to rule out any liability for what's written above...
    Edited by 1 at 26/05/05 @ 09:18

  • Yossarian #2 7 years ago

    Yeah, although the words "Stable" "door" and "bolted" spring to mind.

  • myrmican #3 7 years ago

    Hm. Is this Malice all over again?

  • vrln #4 7 years ago

    I'm probably wrong, but I thought Kameo was playable at E3? At least I saw an E3 video of it being played. It could have been a rolling real-time demo too though, but it looked as if was actually being played most of the time.

    Either way, I'm looking forward to it, it's one of the few Xbox360 launch/early games I'm really interested in. The graphics remind me of Blizzard somehow and the gameplay at least on paper sounds pretty cool.

    The Xbox360 launch is Rare's finest hour, at least it's their chance to prove they are still a top studio. I'm still holding out for a new Battletoads and Blast Corps though.

  • octo #5 7 years ago

    Tarted it up it may be, but I have no compunction whatsoever to go anywhere near this game.

  • riz23 #6 7 years ago

    I really want Rare to succeed again. They are one of Britains finest development success stories and they have exhibted true genius at times throughout their long history. I also want a next-gen Blast Corps.

  • gibbondrives #7 7 years ago

    'next gen blast corps'

    i second this motion.

  • Wrobel #8 7 years ago

    I heard the Rare are currently working on a new Banjo title for the 360 also

  • krudster #9 7 years ago

    No, none of the 360 games were playable on the MS stand in the traditional sense. They had blokes doing live supervised demos, so there was one machine each for about five key titles, and apparently if you went up and asked to play they would let you - but that wasn't exactly obvious unless you hung around and asked. It was a bit odd, especially when you could go on the EA stand and play NFS Most Wanted, or the Sega stand and play Condemned or Full Auto. Not sure why Microsoft did that. I did ask them in a Peter Moore interview (to be published) but the answer was a bit fudged. I think there was an element of not wanting to get the reaction they got back in 2001.

  • zErOb_cOOl #10 7 years ago

    I want Rare to do well. We all know they can pull off great games with style (Goldeneye, Perf Dark), and it sounds to me, like this game might save them a bit.

    I like the concept....it sounds quite a classical idea. Reminds me of classic 80s cartoons that actually valued a solid original concept, and didn't try to rip off anything else (Transformers, Thundercats, Jayce...to name the obvious.) This gives a similar feeling, so I like where this is going.

  • krudster #11 7 years ago

    I think the main issue at the heart of Rare's problems is - I hear - a lot of the core team have long since drifted away. Nevertheless I'm one of the hopeful sods that clings onto the belief that they can turn it around. I'd like to think the Stampers still care enough despite being multi squillionaires.

  • Aretak #12 7 years ago

    *sigh*

    I remember being really excited about this game back when it was first shown on the GameCube... now I just really don't care.

  • drumbaby #13 7 years ago

    "Yeah, although the words "Stable" "door" and "bolted" spring
    to mind. "

    And "second chance".

    :)

  • eviltobz  #14 7 years ago

    /giggles at the suggestion that transformers was in any way original

    anyway, kameo then. back when the first videos of this running on the cube were popping up i was pant-wettingly excited by it. the whole changing forms thing was looking really nice and it was floating around the top of my ones-to-watch list. since the move to ms, the talk all sounds the same, but the vids i have seen so far all look a lot more generic 3rd person action adventure. i hope they prove me wrong, it still sounds cool, but i need to see the magic that the cube was showing way back when.

    (fanboi disclaimer. yup, i am a cube fanboi, but the type who owns all the consoles and is likely to own all the next gen consoles too, so the platform switches themselves do not change my perspective of the game as they make no difference to my ability to procure and play a copy)

    /giggles a bit more about the transformers thing.

  • Sid-Nice #15 7 years ago

    Wrobel: Wrote: I heard the Rare are currently working on a new Banjo title
    for the 360 also

    I think a Banjo would make a good next gen peripheral.

  • Carrybagma #16 7 years ago

    What's the hidden game then, eh?! It's got to be be Pssst, right? Plants and bugs?

  • Dizzy #17 7 years ago

    >Pssst

    Oh damn.. I wasted a whole year with Psst! ;)

  • Les #18 7 years ago

    Isn't It's Mr. Pants coming to 360 also?

  • Xerx3s #19 7 years ago

    Blast Corps 360, now that WILL be an ps3 KILLER APP.! Anyway, if you do some digging in the net, you will find screens from the PD0 privat conf. and they are way better than what was showed. In fact, as far as can be seen from the screens, they rival the U3 engine! That makes you wonder, perhaps its all a good marketing stunt to catch $ony unprepared. If i was M$, thats EXACTLY what i would do.

  • lemonfist #20 7 years ago

    Xerxes, you got a link for those screens?

  • Rob #21 7 years ago

    albeit with some quite nice effects like making all of the creatures slightly transparent so that the player can see Kameo suspended inside them.

    Eh? That effect has been there since the very first GC build of the game was shown - it's not new in any way at all.

    http://media.cube.ign.com/media/016/016571/img_121435 8.html
    Edited by 1 at 26/05/05 @ 13:17

  • Les #22 7 years ago

    I knew it! M$ are brilliant afterall!

  • MoFo #23 7 years ago

    it's not new in any way at all.

    Which is why that line you quoted doesn't contain the word "New".

  • Shinji #24 7 years ago

    I didn't say it was new, I said it looked nice. Which it does - very nice in fact, with a much better transparency effect than the one the Cube was doing.

  • zErOb_cOOl #25 7 years ago

    "/giggles at the suggestion that transformers was in any way
    original

    anyway, kameo then. back when the first videos of this
    running on the cube were popping up i was pant-wettingly
    excited by it. the whole changing forms thing was looking
    really nice and it was floating around the top of my
    ones-to-watch list. since the move to ms, the talk all
    sounds the same, but the vids i have seen so far all look a
    lot more generic 3rd person action adventure. i hope they
    prove me wrong, it still sounds cool, but i need to see the
    magic that the cube was showing way back when.

    (fanboi disclaimer. yup, i am a cube fanboi, but the type
    who owns all the consoles and is likely to own all the next
    gen consoles too, so the platform switches themselves do not
    change my perspective of the game as they make no difference
    to my ability to procure and play a copy)

    /giggles a bit more about the transformers thing."

    Ok, ok. I suppose some Japanese robot thing like Gundam was around first, get me on a technicality, or whatever.

    You know what my point is though. Being able to turn into a set number of certain things (10 diffferent things), and having to rely on using them at different points during the game, is a good idea.

    If it was, 'You can turn into 50 things' it would be crap, because its just too many and you would only use each once or twice. Personally, I think 10 is too many, but whatever.

    What I'm saying is that no other game has the same idea (correct me if I'm wrong, well, apart from Blast Corps?)

    Some genres these days are used to death, instead of new ones being thought up. All FPS= the same. All fantasy RPGs = Uncanny resenblance to the Final Fantasy series.

    We need originality, no matter how painful it is to dream up!

  • Feanor #26 7 years ago

    "Wow, the "Eurogamer is biased" rants sure made Eurogamer more careful."

    Not everyone who complained about EG's E3 coverage ranted and called them biased.
    Edited by 1 at 26/05/05 @ 15:42

  • Les #27 7 years ago

    Billy Hatcher had a similar mechanic. Although you didn'r yourself change into differnt forms, you needed different creatures for different tasks. There isn't much originality in that. In FF X-2 you can change into a huge number of different jobs in order to slay various creatures.

    I'm afraid Rare has lost it. M$ bought it and as you often see after a take-over, everyone talented jumps ship as quickly as possible.
    Edited by 1 at 26/05/05 @ 16:19

  • Rob #28 7 years ago

    Which is why that line you quoted doesn't contain the word
    "New".
    I didn't say it was new...

    It's very heavily implied though to be fair - that particular paragraph is all about the difference (or not) in graphics between the gens, and then that effect is randomly singled out without any real explanation (i.e if it's because it's significantly better than it was before then say so, don't just leave it hanging as if it's a totally new and next-gen thing).

  • vrln #29 7 years ago

    some problems with the comments system... anyways I finally managed to get this posted correctly :)

    "Wow, the "Eurogamer is biased" rants sure made Eurogamer
    more careful."

    There's a big difference between calling EG biased as a whole and calling a few articles biased. I don't see why this needs to be brought up in every article comments section though...

    Anyways, I have a pretty bad feeling about Rare too - I hope they will impress everyone beyond compare with the Xbox360 launch, but the signs don't exactly point to that. I still love their old stuff so I'm hoping for the best. Kameo is looking pretty cool though, something which is very hard to say about any of the PDZ screenshots on the internet.

    About the talent leaving Rare posts, I think the Timesplitters developer (Free Radical) at least has alot of ex-Rare people.
    Edited by 6 at 26/05/05 @ 17:03

  • drumbaby #30 7 years ago

    Just a general whinge....when is the editing problem going to be fixed here? There's a lot of borked looking posts here atm, and even if you type in Notepad/ Word/ whatever, and paste to the box for the edit, it borks it on submission. Grrrr!!

  • Realtime #31 7 years ago

    "I'm afraid Rare has lost it. M$ bought
    it and as you often see after a take-over, everyone talented
    jumps ship as quickly as possible."


    Hmmm, Les looks to me you've got a problem with M$, so Rare have lost it, and where can you tell me where that have lost it? I've played Conkers and it plays pretty good to me and I'm sure the online section it going to be impressive also.

    But getting back to you, when Kameo and PD0 get released they are going to be worst games Rare have released, according to your statemants as they have no talented programmers on board.

    Well those jump ship programmers have a lot to answer for with the likes of Timesplitters, although Second Sight was good though as I liked the story.

  • Les #32 7 years ago

    I'm not a big fan of M$ no.

    Conkers is a port of the N64 game, with a Live section added to it. Hardly groundbreaking stuff. Kameo has never really interested me. As for Project Dark, never played it. But if I'm not mistaken its GoldenEye but less good. If they can give the FPS genre a new twist I'm all for it, but I seriously doubt it though. Their last games were all poor. The one thing they are still good in is being funny on their website.

  • Realtime #33 7 years ago

    Les, I think you've got Conker the other way round as it's Conkers: Live and Reloaded with and updated Conker: Bad Fur Day for those who didn't play it on the N64. I also think you've got Perfect Dark wrong again as the first game on the N64 was a lot better than Goldeneye. I'm sure if anyone in here who have played Perfect Dark will tell you it stand well above Goldeneye.

  • DaveTheHutt #34 7 years ago

    Actually, RealTime, I think you'll find most people who played Perfect Dark and GoldenEye prefer the latter, despite its slight technical inferiority - it has a better atmosphere, better level design, more satisfying weaponry and no idiot aliens called Elvis!

    Hutt out

  • vrln #35 7 years ago

    Les: "Their last games were all poor"

    Not really, they've made some fantastic GBA games, their last two console games (Starfox and ghoulies) have been pretty bad though.

  • eviltobz  #36 7 years ago

    just to continue my little bit of dragging things off topic...

    me:
    "/giggles at the suggestion that transformers was in any way original

    zErOb_cOOl:
    Ok, ok. I suppose some Japanese robot thing like Gundam was around first, get me on a technicality, or whatever.

    not my point. hasbro bought up the rights to a load of different japanese toy lines based on big stompy robots from various anime whatsits. they then proceeded to get cartoons made with all these pre-existing toys whilst flogging them off. there wasn't an original (robotic) character in the transformers universe until the 2nd or 3rd series.

    theres a bit more info at http ://www.revolutionsf.com/article.html?id=2213

    /end transformers fanboi/collector mode


    so, kameo then...

    edit - dodgy site code post borkage
    Edited by 2 at 27/05/05 @ 11:31

  • vrln #37 7 years ago

    Perfect Dark is indeed superior to Goldeneye, despite the framerate problems it had. Those two games were (and still are) true classics.

  • L0cky #38 7 years ago

    Loved Goldeneye, but unfortunalty I got hooked on PC fps games before Perfect Dark and was tarnished by the realisation of how a mouse/keyboard works far better. This spoiled any potential enjoyment I may have garnered from PD when I played it on a m8's console.

    Which was a pity.

  • Les #39 7 years ago

    They got reasonable reviews for their GBA games, but not the high marks that they used to get. And let's be honest, a GBA game doesn't require a large development team, so it's not really comparable to developing 'real' console games.

  • RS3York1 #40 7 years ago

    I have much hope for both Kameo & Perfect Dark Zero. Goldeneye Vs. Perfect Dark is always going to be tough, because in the end PD is based on GE007. So much of the "wow" factor you experienced with GE won't be there with PD.

    It's like "Bullet-Time" from The Matrix 1. The first time most see it, it's very cool. However, by the time most see The Matrix 2 & 3...they've grown accustomed to it and there have been knock-offs in the meantime. So even with improvements many won't find it as wonderful as the first time.

  • RS3York1 #41 7 years ago

    As for all the talk about "Rare's GE/PDZ talent left". This is a popular statement that's often made but has been blown up to be more than it is.

    The folks who left Rare in the much cited "defection" left in 1998, 1 year into development (PD was released in mid-2000). Of the 12 making up the core GoldenEye 007 team, 6 left for Free Radical at that point. They were eventually replaced by another 10.

    Of the 6 who left the most significant would be David Doak (GE007 project lead) Doak went on to found Free Radical along with Steve Ellis (programmer). The others were involved in music, animation & art (2 here). An additional member, Martin Hollis left at the same time. Hollis was the diretor of GE007. Initially he went to consult for Nintendo on GC development, but later founded Zoonami.

    The important thing for Rare is that they still have Duncan Botwood who was largely responsible for the original PD once Doak & Hollis left (Botwood was also involved with GE007)...and whether you prefer PD over GE or vise versa, it's generally accepted that both are great titles.

    Can you name the majority of the folks on Shigeru Miyamoto's team? How about Yu Suzuki? Jason Jones? Kazunori Yamauchi? Probably not without some reseach, yet people don't worry this much about their respective development houses (EAD, AM2, Bungie & Polyphony Digital). Surely they don't all have the exact same staff today as in 1997.

    Don't worry about Rare Ltd.
    Edited by 1 at 28/05/05 @ 11:04

  • Realtime #42 7 years ago

    Interesting new there RS3York1, I though it was all overblown too, like Rare was made up with only 10 people and 8 left

  • Zero Beat #43 7 years ago

    Another Rare article started off with the same old bile backstory. Well done Rob, good job on continuing the 'rough ride'.

    http://www.rareware.com/games/upcoming/kameo/sh ots/kameo_03hi.jpg

    "environments don't look that much more advanced than what might be accomplished by a talented team working on the current-gen Xbox"

    What is this, a pisstake?
    Edited by 7 at 30/05/05 @ 15:32

  • Netfreak #44 7 years ago

    They judge Rare as if they have played Kameo/PDZ. It only make them look sillier. All I can do is just wait and see.