Thursday night Blue Omega showed off their vertically bent steampunk shooter, Damnation, to the press at Bourbon and Branch in San Francisco. After loitering a bit in a pseudo-secret side room (the venue is prohibition-era themed) we settled in to the Xbox 360 system-link set-up in a semi-adjoining back room, where the fuse promptly blew…

But we eventually did get to play the game, and I quite enjoyed it! My first round was King of the Hill in a warehouse-y sort of environment. You notice the height immediately, and notice it head-on if you take the stairs a bit quickly and rely on a railing that doesn’t exist.

You have to sort of suspend your belief a bit when it comes to the utility of the structure—why would anyone build a tower that requires dive rolls over pits of doom to scale? But aside from falling to your doom, it’s pretty fun to wall jump over to a ladder hanging from a platform and clamber up, climb your way to the glowing blue “hill,” and blast away the King and posers alike.

Controls were pretty standard for a third-person shooter, but the gameplay depends a lot more on platforming skills than most. The sprint button was really handy, especially for escaping those horrible HORRIBLE PEOPLE (which, yes, included me from time to time) taking advantage of the (probably) overpowered melee punch.

Actually, there were quite a few unintentionally hilarious fist fights during the evening—people chasing each other like a dog after its tail, four man clusterfreak. However, the level designs are conducive to awesome sniping opportunities as well, and the range of weaponry will allow for both running in with a Tommy-gun styled automatic or hiding out for longer range tactics.

After taking a death match spin through a more outdoor environment, I ended up sampling the evening’s titular cocktail (which was rather a bit like spiked apple cider, and pretty damned—hurr–delicious) with producer Richard Gilbert. He caught me up on details like how the story mode is co-op from start to end, with the second player controlling various supporting characters as they weave through the plot, and how Blue Omega is aiming to create an American epic in the same way that Lord of the Rings could be considered a European epic. I’m totally into the idea of an Americana-marinated, steam-powered, alternate history tale (and I really liked that cowboy I was running around with), so I’ll have my eye on Damnation when it releases this winter.

Tags: cowboy, damnation, shooter

• New Game Releases: 5/24 – 5/30
• Codemasters’ Damnation Announced, Recoil: Retrograd Details Revealed
• Recoil: Retrograd French PSM Scans
• Unofficial Word: Motorstorm 2 Announcement Tomorrow — Anyone Speak French?
• WC 08: Rainbow Six Vegas II Preview Build MP Impressions (Video)
• Halo 3 multiplayer free for Silver XBL members this weekend
• Street Fighter IV Playable at GDC 08
• Dead Rising 2 to feature multiplayer

2 Comments » Helios_CM on October 21, 2008 3:28 am Hi all Helios here, Community Manager at Codemasters. Just wanted to let you all know that balancing issues are one of the last things to be completed, and we will be taking on board all the feedback we’ve received regarding the possibly over-powered melee punch. Emily Balistrieri on October 21, 2008 8:12 am Heh, np. It was fun either way–I actually got a kick out of everyone whining about it XD RSS feed for comments on this post. Comment Now Note: Commenting on Ripten does not currently require registration, however to be eligible for contests on the site, you must be a registered user. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Commenting Rules: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Ripten reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Thanks. Notify me of followup comments Tired of the Goomba? Upload your own custom comment avatar.