The hive

Designed by Edward FawcettFor platform Xbox 360

Rating 18+Release date TBD

Story + gameplay:You are a Biological research engineer, working for a system wide Cooperation, who makes advancements in the human genome, after returning from a penal colony to pick up several hundred prisoners to conduct experiments on, in the form of physical and mental alterations, to see if they could be genetically altered to create a form of totally obedient super solider. However since the Colony is such a distance away from Earth, the entire crew

is held in cryogenic sleep, making the month long tip only seem like a few nights. Leaving the running of the ship’s security, life support and all other essential functions down to the ships A.I dubbed ‘Carmine’.

But when you are suddenly awoken weeks before you arrive at your destination, by the piercing sound of alarm claxons indicating a breach in the vessels hull, you are stunned to find out that the bulkheads are adorned with blaster holes and drag marks, all other cryogenic stasis tubes have been ripped open from the outside and the occupants mutilated, with limbs and severed heads scattered across the floor, bobbing about in miniature lakes of their own blood. Somehow, by some chance miracle, a single sheet of metal, fallen from the ceiling probably the result from an internal explosion, has hidden your pod from whatever had killed the others.

You clamber out of your pod and begin to survey the damage to the room, which is when you notice a consoles which appears to be beckoning you over, upon activating the panel a blue hologram materializes from out of the portable projector node, it then identifies itself as ‘Carmine’, then goes on to explain that a random asteroid had struck the ship and caused the ship to lose all power, which in turn allowed all of the one hundred and seventy three experiment’s loose about the ship, it then goes on to explain that the asteroid had contained some form of biological entity, which fused with human D.N.A and then proceeded to mutate the remaining crew into horrific creatures, which were now running rampant about the ship, hunting down any survivors.

The A.I tasks you to make your way to the bridge, to re activate the power and regain control of the ship, on your way either fighting off the experiments and mutated crew members, or sneaking past them. All the while you suspect that the A.I has its own agenda. On your travels you come across, crewmembers uttering to themselves, or crying out in pain screaming to their mothers or praying for a swift death. There are distant screams followed by a tearing of flesh then silence, eerie and sudden. Groups of survivors held out in what they like to think is an inaccessible room, only seem to find themselves being assailed from

the air vents and coolant ducts. Despite this you will occasionally find a willing companion who is determined to escape the ship as much as you are and will offer to help in return for a security card, access codes or weapons. Will you survive the doomed ship and escape or will you discover the A.I’s plan and save the Earth from the next apocalypse?

Game flow:As the player progresses throughout the game and its numerous levels, challenges become more frequent and have a greater impact upon the character and subsequently the game storyline. This becomes more apparent to the player as the severity of choices grows, in both moral and ethical respects. Forcing the player to seriously consider the repercussions of their actions in the form of their reprisals.

As the player progresses throughout the campaign, he or she will gradually find collectibles and un-lockable’s, taking the form of key cards, weapons, Ammunition or health kits. This will aid them in their mission to either survive and ultimately escape the doomed ship, or to take the fight to the enemy and prevent the ship from reaching its destination, Earth.

The player can acquire the aforementioned objects by either, scavenging them of corpses littered about the place, locating supply creates, or they will gain them as a reward from defeating enemies and bosses.

Each item can only be used once, and the player can’t carry more than the allotted amount. However the player can switch out items from their inventory if they deem it necessary. For example, if they wanted to replace a medical pack for an extra clip of ammunition. The player can carry up to a maximum of three weapons, a sidearm, a main firearm and a close quarter weapon or gadget.

These can be upgraded and repaired as the player moves through the game. As well as being able to upgrade your inventory, you character must maintain and repair your weapon in order for it to continue to work properly, failure to do so will result in weapon damage being decreased and in some cases will stop firing all together.

Character controls:

Manoeuvre camera.

To cycle through your primary weapons use the ‘Up’ and ‘Down’ directional buttons, and ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ to switch between your items.

Repeatedly tap ‘A’ button to jog or hold the ‘A’ button to sprint for a short while.

Tap the ‘B’ button to crouch or hold the ‘B’ button to go prone.

Tap the ‘Y’ button to feign death.Press and hold the ‘X’ button to pick up an item/use key card.

Move character.

LB = Activate personal communicator. RB= Tap to reload weapon. LT= Zoom in. RT= Fire/use weapon, Hold to charge current weapon

Main gameplay concepts and platform specific features:The player takes part in a world where you are forced to make life-threatening decisions each turn you take, the player is forced to either sneak around and avoid confrontation carefully planning how you will survive this ordeal, performing sneak assassinations enemies, or to take a more gun ho aspect to the situation and blast through the map.

The order of play is broken down into tasks and objectives, in which the player has to complete before progressing with the campaign. The game itself is likened that to a free roaming shooter, much like GTA or Assassins Creed. However, completing different objectives will ultimately result in a varied outcome. Each time the player goes through the campaign they can choose from a varied amount of missions to complete. Some missions will be harder than others, and the player might require some specialist equipment such as a key card or weaponry.

During missions, the player will be given numerous objectives, and will then have the ability to choose from whichever they desire. The game will then show realistic art and imagery relating to the mission at hand, sound effects will also be played over whilst the player is in the environment, this will add to the atmosphere and overall experience of the game.

Game world:

The game takes place in the crippled hulk of your explorer vessel, located in an uncharted sector of space. You battle through the dimly lit corridors, with harrowing echo’s and sudden explosions, will keep you tense throughout your perilous travels.

Venturing through different environments, I have included some images of what the environments will look like in the game:

Interface:

1. Your weapon: This can take the form of a pistol or a close quarter melee weapon.

2. The ‘Mini map’: Objectives, pickups and enemy forces will have their own icon. For example an enemy unit will appear in the form of a red blip on your radar, whereas yellow and blue represent your player and objectives.

3. Tactical display: Each time a message appears from you’re A.I it will appear in this display.

4. Reticule: When fired the reticule will increase in size showing that continues fire will result in a wider bullet spread.

5. Health bars: These bars indicate the players health, when damage is taken these bars will change colour from, Blue – Yellow – Orange – Red. When all bars have disappeared the player dies. Medical creates can restore these bars.

6. Syringes: These can be found across the ship, and when applied will enable the player to become immune to damage for a temporary amount of time.

7. Ammunition: This shows the remaining amount ammunition the player is carrying for the current weapon.

Mechanics and power-ups:

Ammunition crate:

Your character will find these scattered across the maps, and when found will appear on your H.U.D for further reference. These crates will supply your character with full ammunition for all of your weapons, and can be reused at any point during the game. Simply just walk up to the crate and tap the ‘X’ button to open the crate.

Locations of crates are likely to be occupied by enemy forces, so it’s usually a good idea not to use all of your ammunition before seeking one out.

Medical crate:

Upon taking severe damage after a firefight or from some hazard, it is usually a good idea replenish any damage with a medical kit. These are most commonly found in infirmaries. However these crates only have four kits in them, which is enough to restore your character to full health. Medical equipment can be found scattered across the battlefield in singular kits.

Enemies and bosses:As the player progresses throughout the campaign, they will encounter numerous hazards along the way, these will usually take the form of and enemy unit and the player will have to eliminate the enemies in order to continue the mission. There are numerous types of foul abominations running across the ship but each share a common goal, to kill.

The most common alien that the player will encounter is the ‘Cadre’ this is one of the basic infection forms. Individually weak and easy enough to kill, but when part of hunter packs you are in danger of being overwhelmed or running out of ammunition. You will often come into contact with these in corridors or large chambers.

Stem syringe:

A somewhat unstable drug, the ‘Stem syringe’ was a drug meant for soldiers fighting in hostile environments, it gave the host immunity to most chemicals and toxins, increasing the adaptation of the human genome.

This highly unstable drug was tested onboard your vessel, resulting in increased aggression levels and extremely violent behaviour towards fellow test subjects.

However this wasn’t without a positive side, subjects said that they ‘felt more aware of their senses’ and possessed much quicker reaction skills.

When the player takes a ‘Stem syringe’ the entire environment is temporarily slowed down, enabling the character to move at an increased speed, giving the effect that all other objects were considerably slower.

The ‘infester’ is a small skirmisher, very quick but lacking armour making it vulnerable when stationary, but make no mistake, their cry will knock you down for several seconds and attract nearby ‘Cadres’. Often lurking in the shadows these cling to walls and bulkheads ready to pounce on un-suspecting victims. Their heavy wheezing is often a giveaway so be sure to keep an ear out when walking into dark rooms.

‘Soul reapers’ are an extremely deadly foe, imitating the voices of dead crewmembers; they lure their prey in, before pouncing out and mutilating their victims. These are often found by corpses clung to ceilings. The best way of dealing with these parasites is to check the entire room over before moving in to converse with that dead corpse.

‘Stalkers’ as the name suggest, hunt their prey for a long period of time before moving in for the kill, that cold feeling that goes down your spine when that pipe falls form the wall, is usually a good indication to send a couple of rounds down range and hope that it wasn’t a stalker. Scuttling in the piping is usually the dead give away. Shining a flashlight in the suspected direction is a good way of temporarily scaring them off, but the only sure way to deal with them is by killing them when they drop down or jump out of the walls.

Custscenes and bonus material:

Custscenes will appear during the start of missions Introducing new bosses, environments and during the end of missions. These will take the form of a short 20-second clip and will vary depending on the situation the character is in. They will provide new information, telling the character where to go and what objectives they need to complete in order to progress through the game. Custscenes will normally be portrayed through the eyes of the main character, which the player is in control of.

Bonus material and un-lockable’s will come in the form of a variation in: Weaponry / Environments / Enemy units and missions. The player will be able to unlock this material through doing bonus missions and completing challenges.