Scrapland isn’t some demolition derby game, or a title set in an apocalyptic wasteland. It doesn’t feature mutants, characters with obscenely large guns or continual lamentations about times gone by. In short, Scrapland avoids many of the tired clichés of the action genre. Instead, Scrapland spends much of its time building and developing a mission based narrative scheme that’s designed to draw players in, propel the story forward and give them the freedom to explore a world they’ll ultimately wind up saving. Sounds like a tall order, until you realize that this game’s development is headed by American McGee, who delivered one of the most original takes on a literary work with Alice a few years ago. McGee calls Scrapland a “film noir murder mystery set in a robotic world.” Players step into the metallic joints of D-Tritus, a newcomer to the city of Chimera who gets a job as a reporter. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much time to get accustomed to his new environment as he soon discovers that someone or something is murdering all of the prominent figures in the city one by one. It quickly falls to him to get down to the bottom of the killings and stop the assassin. One of the things that American emphasized in the demo was the open-ended nature of the game. Instead of the game constantly forcing action upon players or stealth, there were any number of ways that D-Tritus could accomplish his investigations based on how the gamer chose to play, similar to Deus Ex. For instance, players who felt more comfortable with firearms could take a more direct approach, while sneakier players may choose to use more stealth. This is boosted by D-Tritus’s ability to take over any robot he sees, a la Messiah, gaining his target’s appearance and powers. For instance, taking over a Bishop allows a player to fire death rays, while taking over a “Stapler” gives him the ability to walk past guards and sentries unnoticed. He can switch at will between any number of opponents, but has to be wary of one thing: If a police officer or Enforcer spots him taking over another robot, they will not hesitate to attack him on sight. It’s a tough, cruel world, and a large one at that. D-tritus has the option to physically run to different areas of interest in the city or speak to his friend, Sputnik, who will actually build D-Tritus a vehicle from scratch. Plans for these machines are scattered though the world, and D-Tritus can “acquire” these ideas for personal use, augmenting them how he sees fit in his personal garage. This means adding more armor, weapons or engines to blow your competition away. You’d be surprised how necessary these tweaks are, since at any given point in time you may find yourself challenged by the opponent to a race or a mini-fighting game. That’s not the only side adventures that gamers will be able to get involved with, as McGee promised up to 60 hours of gameplay for the ambitious. Add in game scripters for user created content, and it’s pretty clear that there should be plenty for players to explore in the world of Scrapland. Visually striking, Scrapland appears to easily have been influenced by movies such as The Fifth Element, Blade Runner and Tron (minus the personal glowing data streams). The world is a huge bustling metropolis filled with flying vehicles, glowing electronic billboards and aerial highways. What’s extremely impressive is that the game is showing off a high level of polish now and the PC version is still slated to come out in time for Christmas, with an Xbox version arriving shortly thereafter. What we were shown gave the impression that a solid story, creative gameplay and impressive graphics are going to be a welcome present from Santa in this tidy little package. We’ll be taking another closer look at Scrapland in the next few weeks before it gets ready for the holidays, so check back soon! Questions or comments about the upcoming release of Scrapland for the PC and Xbox? Talk to us! [ E-Mail Jeff 'Linkphreak' Haynes ] [ Comment in our Forums ]

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