Posted 7/22/2008 at 11:16 AM By MondoPest

While very little has been seen publicly from SEGA's recently announced RTS, Stormrise, I was fortunate enough to get a look at it behind closed doors at E3 this year while GamingShogun and Pfgonzo got some lunch (lucky them!).

The game is set in our future. Basically, there is an apocalypse and the survivors (now speciated) create a peaceful civilization. Well, that ends up falling into civil war and now the world is once again at war. When the devs were showing off the control system, we could not help think of Full Spectrum Warrior, and we mean that in a very positive way. The movement cursor hovers above whatever surface it is on, giving you a very good look at where you are sending your people. Whats more, the concept of 'verticality' is in full force, with the mission starting from 600 ft bgl in a cavern and moving to 300 ft agl on the top of a building. Using the terrain to your advantage is key as is unit formations.

When moving their troops around, they actually attempt to find cover wherever they go. This also reinforces the FSW parallel as the cover plays a very important role in surviving engagements. To select different units, the guys from Creative Assembly have created a few cool ways to do the job. One is the 'whip select' method, where the dev just tapped a direction on the analog stick sending the camera careening to the nearest unit in that direction. Another way is by using this 'radar-style' UI in which the player selects an arc around the target reticle. This will cause the nearest unit in that arc to become selected. Also of use are the standard 'next' and 'previous unit' buttons.

In the demo we saw, the battle unfolded alot like FSW, but on a much bigger scale with many more units under your command, much bigger battles, and some very pretty graphics. The dev used suppressing fire to keep the enemy pinned from one direction while sending a second squad down a parallel street to flank their position. The enemy fell quickly to this excellent use of tactics. Then it was onward to the developer's main objective. The battle began to rage as the two sides clashed. Eventually, when the action really started heating up, we got to see the two side's 'big units'. The technology-oriented folk have this gigantic battle mech and the more telepathic-oriented individuals have a huge spider-bug that fights for them.

Graphically speaking, the game looks great even in its current state of development. Units are highly-detailed and animations are very smooth. They take cover, run when appropriate, and overall look very realistic. The recon unit we saw was extremely fluid-like in its movements, hurling itself from rooftop to rooftop with ease.

One thing is for sure: we are going to scoop this sucker up quickly when it comes out for the Xbox 360, PC, PS3 sometime in 2009. While we could not get a concrete release date, Spring seemed to be the rumor around the summit.

Official Stormrise Page

Screenshots After the Break!