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Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

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Faster than a speeding bullet?

One of the more interesting role-playing games currently in development is Irrational's "Freedom Force", in which you take control of a group of super-heroes as they battle crime and villainy in 1960's New York City. Project Manager Jonathan Chey describes it as "the first game that recreates the experience of controlling a team of superheroes with all their own strengths, weaknesses and personalities .. using the varied abilities of their characters to defeat an array of super-villains in a dynamic interactive environment - everything is destructible".

In an interview with RPGVault, Jonathan talks about the way your superheroes are built up. "All the characters are constructed using our own RPG character generation system using stats, attributes, powers and weaknesses. Stats are the basic numerical features of the character including strength, speed, endurance, resistance and energy. Attributes are more complex and distinctive permanent features of the character such as wings or wall-climbing abilities. Some attributes (weaknesses) have negative consequences for the character like having an uncontrollable power that the character lets loose with in times of stress."

"Uncontrollable powers that the character lets loose with in times of stress?" Um .. no, we won't even go there.