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In Japanese mythology, an oni was a demon, a creature that expressed the fears of its creator and reflected the culture of the time.
In the videogame Oni, many of mankind’s worst fears have come true, and this time the demon has a human face.
Gaming Animé Style
Oni, developed by Bungie and published by Gathering of Developers tells the tale of Konoko, a specially trained agent of the Technology Crimes Task Force (TCTF). The TCTF is an arm of the World Coalition Government (WCG), which came to power in the year 2032 as a federation of the world’s major governments. The WCG claims to be benign, but really, the only way to stay out of trouble is to allow the WCG to control your life.
If the plot sounds familiar, that’s because the folks at Bungie were under the influence of animé (Japanese cartoons) when they created the game. Classics such as Akira and Ghost in the Shell inform the characters, story and visuals.
“Ghost in the Shell inspired us early on,” says project lead Michael Evans, “but as we brought in more people the influence got more diverse.”
| “I personally believe that Neon Genesis Evangelion is the greatest animé ever produced,” adds lead designer Hardy LeBel. “That’s what I had been watching when I joined the Oni team and I tried to allow it to influence the story we were developing as much as possible.” |
Even if animé is all Greek to you, though, don’t feel like you have to be an expert in the genre to appreciate Oni.
Gaming executive Peter Tamte sums it up best when he says, “I think the animé in Oni adds to the feeling that you’ve never played this kind of game before. It’s kind of like the way the unique camera work in The Matrix made it feel like you’ve never watched that kind of movie before.”
Note: Oni is no longer available from Gathering of Developers, however you may still be able to find it at your local retail store.
| Mac OS X Patch: This patch makes Oni compatible with Mac OS X. |
Follow Alice Down the Rabbit Hole
Like The Matrix, the storyline in Oni involves shadowy conspiracies and ethically dubious uses of technology set in a dystopian future. The WCG keeps the population in line by playing Big Brother while it secretly dabbles in biotechnology with its research in Simulated Life Dolls (SLDs) — similar to androids in Blade Runner.
An SLD named Shinimata assists Konoko during the game, running her through a training sequence that familiarizes you with the game controls and offering advice and other assistance during the story, which concerns Konoko’s investigation of an underground group known as the Syndicate. Also experimenting with SLDs, the Syndicate’s lack of safeguards led to the creation of some SLD warriors with nasty dispositions, which causes a clash with the WCG.
Action in the game takes place from a third person perspective — you see Konoko as you control her. This viewpoint is crucial to the implementation of the hand-to-hand combat system, wherein Konoko excels with a variety of nifty moves.
“It’s quite a rush when you can get Konoko to wrap her legs around some poor chump’s head and flip him into the wall with a thud,” says Tamte. “It’s really incredible how well the animations for the special moves are done. And the fact that each of the dozens of characters has his own unique special move makes it a real challenge to anticipate what special move is about to be unleashed on you.”
Does Whatever a TCTF Agent Can
Of course, no game like Oni would be complete without plenty of weapons to pick up and fire at the bad guys. Since your view of the enemy isn’t the same as Konoko’s, though, the development team at Bungie came up with something they called the jello cam — a view allowing you to see through Konoko, the other characters, and even walls when aiming a weapon.
“One of our great challenges was developing a satisfying aiming model from a third-person perspective,” explains LeBel. “I’m very pleased with the ‘aiming cursor’ system that we came up with, and the jello cam was critical to that model.
“It’s one of Konoko’s super powers. Think of her ability to essentially see around corners as her version of spider sense!”
