Upon hitting the Nintendo section of E3, I was originally a bit overwhelmed by the number of people there. Part of me was annoyed at the huge lines that lay ahead, and another part was happy that so many people were interested in GameCube. Either way, I didn't get any serious hands on with Rare's Kameo until the third day of E3. I think it's best to start these impressions with a look at what the guys at Rare put up on their own website about it.

Kameo's skills lie in capturing and raising the many different creatures of her homeworld: when you first meet her you'll find that her talents are restricted to the smaller, simpler beasts, but with your help she'll soon find herself growing in strength and experience until she's ready to take the reins of some of the most powerful monsters ever to have stalked the lands.

And this is how the demo began. Rather than one full peice of the games experience, they gave you three distinct parts of the game. This first part had you running around and jumping in typical Rare platformer style only there weren't any platforms and you had this odd little uh... gun? You could use this thing to try and capture the creatures running around. Upon "shooting" them, the world would disappear in a drunken rainbow of colors while you tried to manipulate this thing into the black hole at the center. It may actually prove interesting because it can be difficult to catch the creatures. I imagine there will be some truly desirable beasts that you don't often have a chance to get. Well, after I realized that I couldn't do anything with the creatures I caught, I ended this part of the demo and came back later. Back to Rare...

The driving force behind Kameo's expedition into the world at large is the search for six Elemental Children. As she explores a landscape of dense forests, sparkling rivers and vistas that seem to stretch out forever, she'll encounter (and be given the opportunity to command) as many as sixty different beasts - but only by capturing them in their youth can she fully earn their trust and nurture their strengths and abilities to maximum potential, a process vital to survival when conflict and confrontation (often with ruthless boss creatures) lie around every corner.

And that leads me to the second "stage" of the demo. It was a giant man-eating plant of some sort. The cinematic that introduced it was truly awe-inspiring and the reflective/distorting lake of water that encircled it can actually hold a candle to the stuff in Wave Race. Apparently, to beat the boss, you were supposed to "morph" into one of the three creatures available and lob bombs into the things mouth, at which point you could use the 2nd and toast it with your firey breath. The third available monster hadn't quite grown up yet and was useless. I wasn't able to defeat the wretched thing at E3, but I will surely meet it again in the future... The one thing I found a bit odd at this first chance to control the creatures was that each one only seems to have one action (be it launching a bomb, breathing fire, etc.) I would hope the creatures each have a little more depth in the end, but we'll have to see whether or not that is needed. Rare knows best I think.

And when Kameo is inevitably drawn into battle, another of the game's key features comes into play: she can either choose to hang back as her beasts go on the offensive, or she can leap into their minds, see through their eyes and control their movements in the heat of real-time battle. It's up to you just how close to the action you want to be...

The final stage of the demo gave you a chance to take out some normal enemies and control some other creatures. When you "morph" into a creature, the creature is transparent and you can see Kameo inside wearing the creature like a space suit. I didn't get a chance to make the beasts go on the offensive on their own, and I'm not even sure if it was in the demo. Out of the three beasts that Rare allowed you to use in this part, one was a pterosaur of some sort (flying dinosaur), one seemed to be a giant cricket that could jump insanely high, and the third was a large brute who was able to attack the enemies that were present. The fighting reminded me a bit of Diablo with this particular beast. I didn't feel like I could do much else besides walk up to them and beat them into submission.

Although there are still a lot of questions about the gameplay, the game was very solid graphically speaking. The animation was good and the character design is very nice.

Rare is calling the game a role-playing adventure; interesting indeed. So far, the game shows solid control, interesting concepts and artwork and the unmistakable style of Rare. It will be some time before we can really get a good idea of what this game is all about and how it will play, but for now, I'd say it's one to keep your eye on. Let's just hope Rare can make the 2002 release date (late 2002 if I know Rare). And I'm still not clear on what an element of power is...