Hei$t First Look

April 22nd, 2007, 01:18 Posted By: wraggster

Set a game in 1960s San Fransisco and it's likely to conjure up images of a mind-bending rhythm actioner with psychedelic visuals guaranteed to pop your eyeballs in an explosion of colour. This is Hei$st however, a brutal bank-robbing game which involves car-jacking, hold-ups and vicious shootouts. So much for 1969's Summer of Love.

While the hippies got high and the cool cats lapped up the city's new-found open-mindedness, Johnny Sutton enjoyed his first day out of the slammer. The latest in a long line of high-profile thieves, Johnny was banged up for following in the family's footsteps and pulling off a small-time robbery. Thing is, being inside didn't put him off a life of crime; instead it gave a thirst for the major league, an ambition to become known as the greatest bank robber of all time.

We've only seen snippets of the city but hope it's busier in the final game.
So begins Hei$t, a shooting 'n' stealing epic set in an open-world recreation of '60s San Francisco. It's a cross between Grand Theft Auto and a squad-based shooter like Ghost Recon, with players stepping into the no-doubt-stolen shoes of Johnny, out to make a name for himself.

It's not quite that simple, however - you can't simply walk into the first bank you see, empty the vault and then sit back and watch the credits roll. Every job needs to be meticulously planned otherwise you'll be back behind bars in a flash. That's where Uncle Sal comes in; he's the brains behind the outfit, the guy you go to when you need blueprints for the bank, details of the vault, the locations of the cameras - whatever you want, he'll get it for you, providing you give him time.

Pulling off a successful robbery is still not easy though, even if you're armed with every last piece of info on your target. Learning from experience is the only way you'll get the skills needed to tackle the bigger jobs, so it's best to start off small. Thankfully, Sal can help out here too, by highlighting the smaller local banks whose security isn't quite so tight. Once you've picked a target it's into the car and off around the city.

It's worth noting at this point that much of the city we explored in this very early build of the code looked desolate and sorely lacked detail. Compared to the bustling streets in the GTA IV trailer, Hei$t's city looks like a ghost town, with few cars and even fewer people trawling the streets. While we have no doubt the game will be considerably more populated and detailed by the time it's released in October, it was certainly the weakest part of the game so far.

Full article

There are 0 comments - Join In and Discuss Here