The newly announced Amazon Fire TV (only available in the US) won’t just be letting people play Android mobile games on your TV. It’s going to have its own exclusives too, and the first one — a sci-fi shooter called Sev Zero — looks like it’s aiming squarely pulling in people who play action-heavy games on consoles.
Sev Zero’s being made by Amazon Game Studios, a division of the online giant that’s been in existence since August of 2012. It’s going to mix up shooter combat with control-point strategy — where it looks like players will be facing down waves of enemies — and will have a Sev Zero: Air Support companion app that lets the touchscreen users launch airstrikes from smartphones and tablets. Here’s how Amazon’s describing it:
Earth is threatened by an alien species, the Ne’ahtu. Early in the 22nd century, the Ne’ahtu infected Earth’s energy grid with a computer virus that disabled the planet’s defenses. Before the Ne’ahtu could strike, computer prodigy Amy Ramanujan neutralized the alien computer virus and saved the planet. Now, the Ne’ahtu are back and Dr. Ramanujan is trying to prevent them from another all-out invasion of Earth. Switching between towers (to launch various missiles and grenades) and face-to-face combat (to attack with machine guns), the player’s mission is to join Dr. Ramanujan and defend Earth from the Ne’ahtu.
In Sev Zero, players can jump between environments-start in tower defence mode to build out towers and assess the surroundings, and then beam down to shooter mode for face-to-face combat against the Ne’ahtu. Players can also bring friends and family into the action with the Sev Zero companion tablet app, Sev Zero: Air Support. With this multi-player, multi-screen experience, players help each other thwart the enemies-one player is in Air Support mode initiating air strikes from their tablet while the other player is in face-to-face combat mode.
The game is priced at $US7 but comes free with a purchase of the blocky gamepad that Amazon’s created for the Fire TV. The tower defence/shooter mashup looks and sounds a bit reminiscent of 2012 PS3 game Starhawk. Kotaku will have a look at Sev Zero soon.
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