There are a lot of people who like to play video games. Some people aren't happy to simply play games, however; some people desire to change the games - to have a direct effect on the game itself. This could stem from a desire to create video games or to be in control of things in general. Either way, these gamers want to 'tweak' the games they play.
It's often easy to recognize these gamers. They're the ones who spend more time in the 'Create-a-Character' feature than in the rest of the game. They're the ones that keep their player rosters up to date and actually plug a USB mouse into their PS2 to modify their character's logo.
During our visit to Agetec's booth, Staff Software Editor Kyle Prestenback suggested to me that Agetec should be called 'Tweakers', as their new lineup is definitely directed at these 'tweakers', providing highly customizable gameplay. I'll leave the choice of company names to those people in marketing, but tweakers will undoubtedly love to get their hands on Agetec's upcoming titles.
Those familiar with the Armored Core series know that you can customize your armored core immensely by changing out parts and weapons, painting your armored core and even designing your own emblem for your armored core. Silent Line: Armored Core is the latest in the Armored Core series, and offers the ability to import armored cores from Armored Core 3 saved games. Additionally, you have some new camouflage painting schemes that can be used on the 'cores, not to mention a wide selection of parts and weapons to choose from. Silent Line also offers an extra Arena Mode that allows you to create a ladder of armored core opponents, creating the armored cores themselves, and then 'teaching' them how
you want them to fight, thereby creating the A.I. for the armored cores. You can then build an entire 10 armored core arena lineup and save this to a memory card and challenge friends to try to make it through your arena. (And the tweakers rejoiced!).
Agetec is also releasing a new RPG Maker for the PS2, this one's designed to allow you to pick it up and play an RPG from the second you open the box - or to go so deep into the design as to change even the battle system and CGIs. Wanna-be game developers will love the ability to try their hand at modifying/building their own RPG. (And the tweakers rejoiced!)
Last, but far from least, an exciting new game called Magic Pen-gel (evidently some sort of pen-angel) allows you to create characters by drawing them. The game takes the drawings you make and brings them to life. Select 'leg' and draw something, and the character has a new leg. The game gives your character a walking animation (or flying, dancing, attacking, etc.) and your new leg is doing its thing. (Yes, this works with three legged creatures, and no they can't have two heads - I tried it...) It's fun enough on its own to serve as a game in and of itself - but I believe there's more to the game. (Not sure what that would be, however, as I was so entertained by the draw your own creature feature...) It really looks quite interesting; perhaps it will bring a new era of interactivity to video games. At any rate, I have to go now... the tweakers are waiting for me... we're going out rejoicing...
