NYCC 2012 Panels: Remember Me, Hitman Absolution & Da Vinci’s Demons

Last week marked a milestone in my life when I attended my first ever Comic Con. I was fortunate enough to live close by New York City to attend New York Comic Con at Javits Center this year. I only attended for two days since I had my undergraduate studies to worry about as well. However, I made the most out of NYCC’s events last Friday and Saturday and had loads of fun to the point that I ignored the exhaustion creeping up my body. For this post, I’ll be going over what went on during some of the panels I attended and absolutely enjoyed.

Capcom’s Remember Me

Okay, the room was filled for this one and the crowd went nuts for this one. After every video that was played, people erupted into roaring cheers and applause. Remember Me is an upcoming action/adventure/sci-fi video game by Capcom scheduled for release on May 2013. Interestingly, Francis Mao of Capcom describes the game as a franchise so rest assured this won’t be a one-shot. The game is set in the future of 2084 Neo Paris where the city has gone through several civil wars and is going through a period of reconstruction. The main characteristic of this era is that our memories are now considered a commodity that can be bought, sold, shared, and even stolen. This is made possible through an implant device called the Sensation Engine (Sensen) that records and stores all our memories. The female protagonist is a skilled memory thief named Nilin who not only steals memories but also has the ability to manipulate them.

httpv://youtu.be/5XQ1oV-jhHc

I honestly didn’t know much about the game except for the fact that it was all about remixing memories. Thus, I attended the panel to enlighten myself and I ended up being awestruck in addition to being informed. The highlight of the panel had to be the last video that was shown (the video I posted above). Developers claim this was an exclusive clip, but I saw it was on YouTube for the past two months. This is mainly because most clips were only showed in cons so far, but never widely released. Anyway, I liked how the lead artist explained that the memory looked incomplete (digitized blocks) by saying that our memories are essentially blurry. Thus, we can’t really remember every detail. In the clip, you are tasked with making your target believe that he killed his girlfriend to push him to suicide. To achieve this, after watching the original memory play, you have to manipulate certain objects in the environment like placing a bottle by the target’s foot so he will trip near his gun. It was nothing short of awesome.

Aside from this, clips of combat gameplay was shown. It seems like that the focus is on melee instead of using guns. This is a good thing since there was a lot of slow motion fighting animation shown. The finishing blow called ‘Memory Overload’ drew a lot of gushing from the audience since it shows Nilin uploading an overwhelming amount of spam files in the enemy’s Sensen which causes it to explode in a glorious violent and digital fashion. There is a feature called the combo lab, you can build your own combos based on your strategy. Some combos can be used to regenerate health, more damage and what not. What if I don’t want to build combos? Pre-set combos will be made for you. Mao reiterated that it was important for players to always have a choice.

It has certainly been a while since video game previews truly held my jaw wide open enough for me to decide to pre-order it right away (Mass Effect 3 trailer was the last). I believe Remember Me has the potential to be one of gaming’s legends and so far it shows a narrow room for disappointment. For now, Capcom… you’re doing it right.