X-Blades

Long, long ago, in an age that only the gods can now remember, the universe was ruled by two powerful beings that were revered and worshipped by all races - but the ‘brotherly’ relationship between these two creatures was always in question from the beginning of time, simply because no one knew who the real number 1 was. While the Enlightened was on the side of good, helping his people how and when he could, the Dark One was quite the opposite, full of hate and devilish works - and so the never-ending battle between the Enlightened and the Dark One persisted for centuries. Humans suffered terribly thanks to this constant combat between the two – combat which shook the universe to its very core. Finally, thanks to a trick, the Enlightened succeeded in banishing the divine power of the Dark One, imprisoning it in an Artifact - but in doing so, the Enlightened lost his own divine powers, because the two divine beings were inseparably linked to one another. This is how two Artifacts came to be hidden in a huge Temple - and how the Enlightened prevented the downfall of the entire universe. However, these two artifacts contain total, absolute power - both good and evil. Any human being who comes in contact with the powerful stones will be horribly cursed - and the power of darkness will once again be awakened.

The game begins when a map which has been lost for countless years suddenly turns up - and it shows the location of the artifacts. The adventurer Ayumi starts searching for the immensely valuable stones. Powerful forces against which she is helpless threaten to awake in her body. Now it's up to her to discover what the secret of the curse is - and at last defeat the darkness.

GAME FEATURES:

Absorbing fantasy story with spectacular landscapes and figures

Attractive heroine in Anime style

Learn to play easily - wide range of development possibilities

Special mode for a heroine with demonic forces

Innovative Blade Gun for firing projectiles and for close combat

Role-playing elements to improve skills and enhance weapons

Over 20 types of magic in different classes

Around 40 different scenarios (Indoor and Outdoor)

Alternative endings, depending on player's actions

Hidden Power-ups hook players to explore levels

Over 30 different classes of opponent

Powerful Boss opponents with fantastic design

Cinematic stylistic devices like Bullet-Time

Various difficulty levels - from Beginner to Pro

ENGINE FEATURES:

Multiplatform Engine: XBox 360, PS3, PC.

Parallax Mapping adds a greater sense of depth to a surface texture, realistically emphasizing the relief surface structure of objects.

High Dynamic Range (HDR) Lighting and Rendering. All lighting data including light maps, environment maps and dynamic lights in the scene are computed in high dynamic range space for natural lighting.

Radiosity Lighting. World geometry is lit with radiosity lighting stored in light maps or per vertex to provide immersive environments. Light maps encode directional information so that lighting combines naturally with bump maps, resulting in more accurate lighting of local surface detail.

Radiance Transfer/Indirect Lighting. Dynamic objects and characters in the world pick up bounced light computed during offline radiosity computation. This lighting effect truly grounds characters and other dynamic objects in the game world.

Rim Lighting. A separate rim lighting term can be used to highlight character silhouettes.

Subsurface Scattering (SSS) Effect. A simulation of light scattering in translucent materials adds to the realistic look of character skin.

Shadow Depth Mapping. Shadow depth textures allow for realistic self-shadowing of objects in the world, providing a more realistic and immersive effect.

Ambient (Skylight) Shadows. Dynamic objects and characters in the world generate high performance ambient/skylight shadows which are projected onto world geometry, providing critical lighting cues even for characters situated in the world geometry shadow.

Volumetric lighting. Atmospheric light scattering creates beams of light shining through the environment, sunbeams streaming through an open window for example.

Motion Blur. Render full-screen camera motion blur in real-time.

Dynamic Color Correction. Interactively edit the color cast and contrast of your scene to match the desired art style.

Advanced Image Post-processing. Bloom and star-shaped highlight effects greatly enhance the rendered image.

Animation Blending. Seamlessly blend gestures to create continuous movement or add depth to any character situation.

Layered Animation Blending. Synthesize animations out of multiple pieces.

Particle Effects. Advanced particle system can emit sprites or models for realistic fire, explosions, snow, and more.

Trail Effects. Procedurally created trails allow richer flame and magic effects.

X-Blades offers action-packed enjoyment in fantastic Hack-and-Slash style. Using various weapons, spells and tactics, the player must fight his way through many indoor and outdoor levels, killing hordes of monsters on the way. The story, exciting and rich in variety with numerous cutscenes not only motivates the player, it also cleverly interlinks the individual levels. Besides the ‘normal’ monsters, there are also Monster Generators, which ceaselessly create new creatures (and of course powerful Boss opponents) for the game world. Hidden Power-ups and coins ensure that the player is rewarded for exploring a level. Some locations can only be reached by bold and daring leap/jump combinations.

The player will only achieve success in the game if he makes use of the extensive system for the further development of the heroine Ayumi - Experience Points earned, for example, must be converted to Skills. There are various Power-ups available to help the player as well, like combat techniques, magic, weapon enhancement and teleportation and the right mix will lead to success. Apart from that, the use of skills on the good or bad side also affects the finale. Depending on player actions, two different game endings await the heroine Ayumi - and that in itself is a hook for players.

Last updated on 03 March 2009