It’s called God Mode, and it’s a cooperative shooter developed by a New Jersey-based studio called Saber Interactive. It’s also published by Atlus, the Japanese company behind Persona and Catherine.
God Mode will be out in early 2013 as a digital release for PC and consoles. It’ll cost $US10, Atlus tells me.
I had the chance to play God Mode when I went to visit Atlus’s US offices earlier this month — more on that in the next few weeks — and it’s a rather fun cooperative shooter. The basic premise is that you’re a descendant of a god, exiled and sent to a hellish maze to try to regain your god status. To do that, you have to fight your way through a series of mazes, blasting up all sorts of enemies — skeletons, ogres, ghost mages — in the process. Group up, shoot things, rinse, repeat.
The big catch is that at the beginning of each level, there’s a totally random modifier that can shift up how you play. Sometimes it’s helpful: enemy blood will be replaced by gold. Sometimes it’s hilarious: all the enemies will spawn wearing party hats. It’s an interesting way to spice up what could have become monotonous gameplay.
There’s also a lot of customisation involved. You can dress your character up in silly outfits and give him/her all sorts of weapons (assault rifles, shotguns, chainsaws) and abilities (Healing, Shield, Call Lightning). You can also set up challenge modifiers called Oaths that will gimp you in exchange for more experience. The game is challenging as hell, even on the lowest difficulty settings. Playing alongside some of Atlus’s production team, I died quite a bit.
But then again, I am not very good at shooters. I never play them. So while I can’t sit here and compare God Mode‘s specific mechanics to, say, Call of Duty or Left 4 Dead, I can tell you that the game is quite fun. Especially when everyone wears party hats.
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