RTX Red Rock

GameCube

Sci-fi games are usually filled with dinosaurs and hyperdrives and such, thousands of years in the future in galaxies far, far away. RTX Red Rock uses a much different style, taking place only 100 years in the future and remaining quite realistic, all things considered. The game puts you in control of EZ Wheeler, the best of the best in Earth’s special forces unit, RTX. Basically, aliens have attacked our “Red Rock” colony on Mars, and you have to go investigate what happened and rescue any survivors.

The game’s overall design and style could best be described as realistic-futuristic. It’s supposed to look like what an actual Mars colony would be in 100 years. LucasArts is taking concepts and designs from NASA and updating them to look a little more advanced...but the technology and architecture should still look very familiar to fans of our modern space programs. When Wheeler leaves the colony, he has to put on a big space suit so he can breathe while outside on the Martian terrain. And while he’s out there, he’ll have to deal with the lower gravity, which affects his jumps, walking speed, falls, and vehicle physics.

RTX Red Rock will be about equal mixtures of shooting action and exploration. Wheeler has several weapons to use against the aliens, and the lock-on feature looks to be pretty well implemented so far. It’s not anything as advanced as what we’ve seen in Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, but it should get the job done.

The exploration aspect of the game seems to be much more fleshed out at this point. Wheeler has to search through many large colony structures for clues and survivors. He’ll have to bypass security systems and sometimes find secret passages. In many cases, there will be more than one way to reach your destination...you’ll just have to use some ingenuity and figure out the best path to take. One example we saw at E3 presented a locked door in Wheeler’s way...he can look for a way to open it, or, if you notice the open air duct in the ceiling, he can jump up there and crawl around to the other side.

Outside, Wheeler can jump around onto ledges and over gaps, and his suit comes equipped with a reusable jet pack. It’s not nearly as powerful as the one in Bounty Hunter though; this thing is mainly used to help nudge you over big jumps and slowly descend from a big fall. Wheeler’s bionic eye will also come to play during exploration. It has several modes to help you out, including thermal vision, x-ray vision, and a green scanner that activates switches and provides info, much like the Scan Visor in Metroid Prime.

One of the most innovative and versatile features is IRIS, Wheeler’s talking mobile computer module. IRIS has an...assertive female personality, and she likes to talk. A lot. Aside from just giving you a lot of useful information and advice, she can also be plugged into all sorts of robots and machines to activate them. In fact, RTX Red Rock features several fully controllable robots that are not only fun to play with, but can also access areas and perform functions that Wheeler can’t by himself.

Aside from the rather large single-player quest, the game has a few multiplayer levels included. Along with the standard deathmatch, there is a capture-the-flag mode and, more interestingly, a race using the various vehicles and robots that Wheeler finds along the way. We’re hoping you can also duke it out with the robots like a certain popular TV show...

RTX Red Rock hopes to join the many classic, beloved LucasArts adventure games of yesteryear. With a pretty interesting main character and a very unusual realistic style, it may just succeed. Look for it to land on GameCube (as well as PS2) in spring 2003.