Sega Nerds

SGD08: Golden Axe: Beast Rider preview

Posted by George. Filed under George, Microsoft Xbox 360, Multi-platform, Preview, Sony PlayStation 3. Tagged with event, Golden Axe Beast Rider, SGD08.

I don’t know what it is about Golden Axe: Beast Rider, but there are a lot of people out there looking forward to it. I guess that happens every time Sega revives an old IP. Everyone in the forum so far has mixed reactions on this game. Some say it looks horrible, others good, and most are on the edge.

Like with Sonic Unleashed, I didn’t actually get a chance to play it myself. A Sega rep took the reins, so to speak. Sure it’s not as good as getting to play it myself, but it’s still more than we’ve gotten since it was first announced!

Hit the jump for the rest of the preview.

The game has been criticized for its graphics. While it looked all right in motion, it was definitely no masterpiece. It looked better than Iron Man and had more objects on screen at a time, and the shadowing was pretty nice. They showed us the whole map and it’s really big; they said the whole thing loads into the Xbox 360’s memory, so it doesn’t load while running through it. Maybe that’s why the graphics aren’t that great-looking. They look decent, but nothing to write home about. The game did run smoothly though.

We only saw one cutscene and the voice actors are sorta meh. They weren’t horrible but they weren’t that great.

Something that they bragged about is the controls (too bad I didn’t get to try them out). The game is supposed to have really great controls and be “button-masher-proof.” They said it was “tempo based.” I don’t really know how it felt, since it wasn’t hands-on. They did promise a playable build at E3, so we’ll see what happens.

One of the cool things in the game is groups of bad guys are usually led by a captain, who will be wearing different armor compared to his goons. You have the option to kill the captain first. If you do this, you will send the survivors into a frenzy. They will start going crazy and all attack you at once. However, if you do this you will get better loot.

The game will feature classic music from the original game. I heard some of the tunes, one was when the dwarf came out. They showed us the green dwarf that is supposed to be a healing type. The red dwarf is a villain type. It shoots fire and also leaves dropping. But watch out, it’s all poison droppings.

One of the most disappointing things for me was to hear that you will get so few costumes and weapons. They said you get six different costumes and weapons.

In the original if your beast died you couldn’t get him back. You had to play the game and try to find a new one on the way. Beast Rider has a larger focus on beasts as indicated by its subtitle, and will let you get a beast almost whenever you want. The catch is that you have to be at a “Beast Spawner.” You will be able to choose which beast to use. Each beast has its own abilities, so choose wisely depending on the enemies you’re going to face.

You will aslo be able to cast magic, but the magic didn’t seem to be as powerful as in the original arcade game. That was a disappointment; I remember magic playing a large role in the original. The guy just threw a ball to show that magic was in the game, but didn’t go into how destructive it gets.

To make the game more ‘arcade-like’ there will be posts through the game which you can touch to let you temporarily power up something on your character. The person playing choose to beef up his defense. He went in a room with five guys and a huge monster in the middle. He hacked the guys in half (blood flowing all over the place the entire time) and then walked up the back of the huge monster and stabbed it in the spine.

Something else in the game is the counter-attack. The person playing let a bad guy try to swing at his character, but then he grabbed the enemy’s arm, twisted it to his back and broke it. It was pretty cool and I want to see what other counter moves are in the game.

Some of the returns from the classic games are minimal, but when you see them they take you back! One of the moves is the jump and hit move from the original. I don’t know what it’s called, but you know when you hit jump and hit your character does a weird sword animation. Well, it’s in Beast Rider. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw it.

Two of the beasts they described were rather awesome. One of them is a take on two classic beasts. Remember in the original Golden Axe, you got one beast that could shoot fire and the other that could hit with its tail? Beast Rider has a beast that is a slick version of both. They showed how you can use certain beasts to perform different puzzles. The one they demonstrated was a locked door. There were two torches and one of them wasn’t lit. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out how to open the door. Sure, it’s not a mastermind puzzle, but hopefully it’s just a sample of what the rest of the game has in store.
The other beast they described was a raptor type creature. The guy said you couldn’t mount him. What you had to do to ride this insane beast is make him hit a wall. Then when you mount him you stab it in the spine and control him. He has a blood lust and you have to keep him fed with the blood of enemies. He is supposed to have a scorpion-type tail that can stab and pick up multiple enemies and eat them. We were not shown this beast.

Also, some of the most expensive items are the Golden Axe and the retro bikini of Tyris Flare. They said you will have to work very hard to get both of the items and that they want you to feel really accomplished when you do. It seems that they decided not to show us mercy.

There is also ‘The Arena’ that lets you join and play 60 different levels of enemies, which have to be fought in the main story to unlock them in Arena. The further you advance in the 60 levels, the harder the enemies get. Some levels might even have multiple mini-bosses in them. The brutal part is there are no save points at all. Once you die, you start back at level 1. Don’t die!

There was some footage shown of a person fighting Death Adder, so he is in the game. Don’t worry about him not being in it.

Other things asked were if there will be online/LAN co-op and he said no, that this game’s main focus was on beasts. He said that Gilius Thunderhead and Ax Battler have their own stories and they all meet up in the end of the game. This game is focused on Tyris Flare.

Conclusion:

The lack of weapons and costumes is a real disappointment to me. I like to play hack-and-slash games with a lot of weapons. Also, the fact that I can’t play as Gilius Thunderhead and Ax Battler is sorta lame. Not having co-op sort of ruins the Golden Axe experience to me. This game may turn off Golden Axe purist.

Some of the combat looked cool and beasts sounded fun to play as. The whole running around a huge map and taking on small clans of enemies sounds epic to me, while the arena survival mode sounds really cool.