/ Previews / Shooters / Experience / Page 1
Meet the protagonist of our newest virtual excursion, Ti Guat.  Article by Eric Rasmussen (10/10/99)	teaser created by David Myers

(Note: The three exclusive screenshots are found on the third page of this preview.)
Off hand, how many games can you name that broke new ground and revolutionized a genre? I assure you, it would be an incredibly small list… and even smaller if you only counted games from the last couple of years. Things are hopefully going to change soon - sometime in the year 2000. What kind of masterpiece could bring about such a revolution in the gaming industry? A project that is incredibly risky, designed by a team willing to take a leap of faith in trying to redefine the genre. Experience, a very appealing new project being made by the aptly named developer, "The Whole Experience," is a game that proposes to do just that. And if you're lucky, they may just package a bag of chips with the game - that way people who don't normally use street slang wouldn't feel the least bit silly saying, "Experience is all that and a bag of chips!" Ok, I'd still feel a little silly.

Ti Guat is the newest hero to join the growing list of gaming protagonists, but this creature is a bit different than most. Ti Guat does not flaunt large breasts, exhibit the normal attributes of your generic space marine, nor does he rely solely on the use of large weapons with nifty particle effects to destroy his enemies. Instead, Ti Guat has decided not to base his strategy on the point and click shooting action in your average, uninspired Doom (or perhaps Quake is more appropriate nowadays). He will rely on stealth, tracking ability, and other common tactics employed by real life hunters to evade or destroy opposition as needed. He will also gain new abilities and evolve throughout the game, and even learn to combine weapons with items to make for more powerful creations. Is it not nifty? But more on this later, don't worry, it won't be long. My point is Ti Guat is going to be one of the first protagonists in a while to use his wits in battle, and this is a long awaited change to the first person shooter gameplay.

As interesting as Ti Guat may be, he will need a really good story to back him up, as that is a growing trend in shooters today. Games can no longer settle for the "Congratulations, you have beat the game" text ending found in Quake (terribly sorry if I ruined that for you…), and as such, the backing story must be an interesting one also. Experience has a story and environment completely new to humans, something that really isn't common. What is the last FPS game you played that did not have a human hero? Was there any shooter game recently that featured a completely alien environment with its own architecture and creatures? As with the list of revolutionary games, these questions can only be answered with the names of but a few games. Nevertheless, Experience is going to have an environment unlike anything you've seen before, as well as a completely new and creative story. Here's what's happened so far:

A utopian race has existed for a very long time, as most utopian races tend to do, in peace and serenity. Things were good, and they will continue to be… but something is missing from their perfect world. None of the citizens in this world can even fathom the utter evil and contempt warring races once held for their kind, so some form of expressing this must be enacted to keep everyone in check and fearful of how things could have been. In order to best accomplish this, the leaders of this race created an incredibly immense virtual world, known as Dagoth Moor is home to all sorts of interesting (and evil) creatures. Members of the aforementioned utopian society (known as the "All") are to enter this world for a time and observe and interact with the creatures to discover how the future could have been. Unclear on just how this worked, I went ahead and asked Jeff Connelly of The Whole Experience team about just how Dagoth Moor works, and he explained it for me. Although I'm going to paraphrase his response, the full text of the interview comprises the final page of this preview. Each character in the real world of Dagoth enter the virtual world of Dagoth Moor and are represented by energy spheres. They then choose characters within the "Tower of Creation," and they also choose weapons, devices, and various combat simulations and training exercises to see just how efficient your newly designed hero is.

If none of this has got at least the smallest bit of your attention, then I can safely say you are what most adoringly refer to as a "weirdo." Or, maybe I just didn't fill up this page with enough information, and you should really click below to go to the next page.