 A concerned reader wrote in after attending the Gen Con (paper gaming convention thing) somewhat recently, as the HyperScan was there (I posted about it here, and he wanted to share his impressions. So! Here they are. He chose not to be mentioned by name or anything, as his impressions are, well - you'll see, I suppose! Also, note that the official site is operational now, with some sort of video that I can't get to load in france. Maybe there's a hyperscan filter over here. I saw some gameplay in there though, so you should check it out, most certainly! Even after this report, I still want to try it...masochism, maybe. Anyway, here are his impressions.
"So Mattel had a booth at GenCon this weekend for the HyperScan. Holy crap.
For one, the guy who was running the demo said it was still in Alpha... and
the sign said it was going to be $70 in October, for the system, Xmen game,
one controller, and booster pack of cards. The controller felt like a bad
dual shock rip-off that you would buy for a PC for $10 at wal-mart. And the
feel of the system was cheap plastic.. but it's $70, so what do you
expect?
So as the demo begins, the guy keeps reminding me that this is still a
"preliminary" game, and has not yet gone into beta. The menu has the basic
fighting game options - single, multi-player, options, and i think one that
said training room, where he said you would gain experience points from
winning matches and then could go into the danger room and improve your
character. So he selects multi player and it starts to load... and load.. as
he tells me that it's a cd-based proprietary 32-bit console "like the PlayStation".
So once the chacter select screen comes up, I select cyclops, and the person
who was on the 2nd player controller picked Magneto. Then the game asks you
to scan a special move, and he had 3 cards for each player connected by
chain to the table, and he scans one for each player. And then the waiting
begins, all we get is a black screen that says "loading...". As soon as this
pops up he's on damage control saying "Like I said, this is still
preliminary, and has not yet gone into Beta. You are also going to notice
that the animation is really jerky and that's going to be improved before
the release in october. Also, there are 2 punches and 2 kicks, but only 1
kick and 1 punch are working right now, and that's going to be fixed before
release"... So we are watching the loading screen... I didn't count the time
but I'm guessing around 30sec to load the match. (Brandon's note: that sounds quite excessive, so take it as you will) And he adds once again that
this is preliminary software.
Finally we are into the match. It looks just like the picture that you put up on the
net, with the animation of Killer Instinct for the SNES, and the gameplay of
Primal Rage. The L button was your special move, mine was of course
Cyclops' eye beam, and the Rbutton I think he said was block. Since this
was an Alpha stage game, as the demostrator once again pointed out, I could
just do my special all day and magneto would die, as he couldn't block or
attack me. Magneto had some weird magnetic type ball he hit me with, that
looked more like something that storm should throw. And that about sums it
up.
After you defeat someone, you can swipe a "finishing move" card, but he said he ran out of them. They were giving out free cards after you tried it, but I said no thanks, as I don't think my local recycling service could take it."
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