SumGamer said:

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Afrika Hands On - ps3.ign.com

The title was set up for demo play at Sony's Tokyo headquarters for the latest round of Experience PlayStation events Thursday evening.

Our play session started off in the surroundings of our base camp. We were able to make our character walk and run freely, but were told by Sony reps to get into a car in order to really travel far.

Regardless of how you choose to travel, the game appears to implement its control systems pretty well. When on foot, you move and strafe with the left analogue stick and look around with the right, giving you the ability to fully survey your surroundings as you explore the African wilderness. When in a vehicle, you use the triggers for acceleration and breaking and the left stick for steering. All standard stuff, but implemented solidly.

When on foot, you can press down to make your character bend down a bit and ready his camera. In this stance, you can sneak up on animals and take pictures, zooming in depending on your camera and lens type.

That's right. Afrika has not just collectible camera types, but collectible camera accessories as well. The version of the game on display had two cameras available, a Sony Alpha and an older camera, each with one selectable lens. The game's shooting interface and the resulting picture quality change depending on your current equipment.

Upon trying to take pictures of the few animals that we encountered, we discovered that the virtual creatures of Afrika, much like their real life counterparts, don't like being disturbed. Run up to a pack of animals, and they'll disperse. The only way to get some good pictures using just a standard camera is to sneak up on your targets, zoom in all the way, wait for the perfect moment, and snap away.

These rules apply for driving as well. If you approach a pack of animals at full speed, they'll disperse. Animals are best approached on foot.

Incidentally (because we're sure you're wondering), it appears that you can't actually hit animals with your car. The game stops you just before contact and you get a warning message from your partner about how you shouldn't get too close to the animals.

While you're free to take pictures to your heart's content, there is a point to your photography. You take on requests from a variety of parties who are interested in certain pictures, and in return receive money (in units of "A," whatever that is) which can be used to buy new items. The few requests that we were able to see in the demo involved taking pictures in different ways, some just standard shots, others taken at night, and others using specific equipment, such as a tripod.

Before we were able to try ramming (probably unsuccessfully) into more animals, evening came on and we were automatically taken back to our home base, which appears to be a central hub for taking care of all the game-like details such as saving and setting options. You also have access to three major components of the game from here: a shop, laptop PC, and field guide.

Your PC lets you store pictures that you've taken while out on your safari (if you don't do this, you'll eventually run out of either space or film) and check up on your in-game e-mail. E-mail is where you learn of missions which, as we described above, all seem to involve taking pictures. Mission descriptions are detailed, often with pictures and even video clips of the requested animals.

Building up the field guide looks like it will be a major time consumer for animal fans. The guide, which contained just one entry in the demo version, offers text descriptions of animals, pictures and videos marked as "National Geographic Data," and fully rotatable 3D models of each creature at different ages.

The shop is where you buy new camera equipment, tents (presumably for night shooting) and car upgrades. At the demo area's point in the game, the shop had new camera bodies, new lenses, and a few car spray paint sets available.

Many of the items in the shop appear to be licensed, with the car showing the "Suzuka" logo and all the cameras coming from Sony's line up new and old models. The shop interface actually opens up with an ad pimping Sony Alpha products. This was hopefully just for show, as having to see a new add every time you want to buy something would totally suck.

Although we were able to sample the various components of Afrika, our short play time did not really let us get a full feel for what the game is all about. We're going to have to sit down with the full title and explore for a few hours before discovering the true Afrika, it seems.

One area of the game did manage to disappoint us even in our short play time, though. On a visual level, Afrika has some major framerate issues. The game is consistently choppy. While it's true that there's a lot of detail in the world along with a full day-night cycle, not having a smooth visual engine does sort of take you out of the fantasy of existing in this virtual recreation of Africa.

Also disappointing is that the game world isn't totally seamless. While sections of the game world are huge overall, they do have invisible walls preventing you from going too far, along with clear entry and exit points, where the screen goes blank and the next area loads in.

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More Afrika details - ps3hyper.com

Sony brought Afrika to Taiwan recently to a media event and lets journalists, GNN did a little coverage of the showcase and has more details about the game.

As reported in the previous issue of Weekly Famitsu, the main theme of the game is Safari and you will be a photo journalist visiting Africa. At the start of the game, you choose to either be a male or female journalist and your assignments will be taking photos and research the lifestyle of these animals. Assignments will come from the headquarter via emails send to your camp, after investigating the map of the location and getting your equipments ready, your AI driver/tour guide is waiting for you in a Jeep. So for those who are looking forward to hitting the animals with the Jeep, you are out of luck. You can take photos from the Jeep or get down to be closer with the animals.

GNN says they found the zebras, gazelles and giraffes earlier in the game extremely life-like, like watching National Geographic channel. However, getting too close to these animals will either scare them away or being attacked by the fiercer types. Taking photos with your cameras is just like real life, you can adjust settings like focus and aperture. Different cameras will also produce photos of different qualities and if you shakes a lot on you SIXAXIS controller, you can only get a blurry shot. SIXAXIS is also being used to adjust the angles of the photo.

Once you are done taking photos, you can send them to the headquarter, who will rates the photos based on their composition, rarity and clarity. Good shots will earn you money to buy better cameras, obviously Sony is not going to miss the chance to promote their range of DSLR.

The game looks incredible so far and like GNN mentioned in their article, you’re not rush to get anything done in the game but encouraged to observe and discover more, a good departure from all the shooters and fighting games

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Loudninja said:

All they have to do is fix the framerate issues,sounds great other than that.

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One area of the game did manage to disappoint us even in our short play time, though. On a visual level, Afrika has some major framerate issues. The game is consistently choppy. While it's true that there's a lot of detail in the world along with a full day-night cycle, not having a smooth visual engine does sort of take you out of the fantasy of existing in this virtual recreation of Africa.

Also disappointing is that the game world isn't totally seamless. While sections of the game world are huge overall, they do have invisible walls preventing you from going too far, along with clear entry and exit points, where the screen goes blank and the next area loads in.

Click to expand...

Although we were able to sample the various components of Afrika, our short play time did not really let us get a full feel for what the game is all about. We're going to have to sit down with the full title and explore for a few hours before discovering the true Afrika, it seems.

One area of the game did manage to disappoint us even in our short play time, though. On a visual level, Afrika has some major framerate issues. The game is consistently choppy. While it's true that there's a lot of detail in the world along with a full day-night cycle, not having a smooth visual engine does sort of take you out of the fantasy of existing in this virtual recreation of Africa.

Also disappointing is that the game world isn't totally seamless. While sections of the game world are huge overall, they do have invisible walls preventing you from going too far, along with clear entry and exit points, where the screen goes blank and the next area loads in.

Click to expand...

jett said:

Reading between the lines: "This game is crap!"

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ChrisGoldstein said:

Well ign didnt say anything about the 'fiercer animals attacking' like ps3 hyper. So will the lions attack you?

And why call it hakuna matata, Afrika sounds way better.

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jett said:

Reading between the lines: "This game is crap!"

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gantz85 said:

I don't even have to read between the lines to see the troll.

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Guybrush Threepwood said:

English option?

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BeeDog said:

He isn't a troll, just read his tag and you'll know. And I do agree with him, when IGN doesn't give a glowing preview, you should realize there might be problems with the game.

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Cheeto said:

Why isn't anyone declaring 'non-game'?

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One area of the game did manage to disappoint us even in our short play time, though. On a visual level, Afrika has some major framerate issues. The game is consistently choppy. While it's true that there's a lot of detail in the world along with a full day-night cycle, not having a smooth visual engine does sort of take you out of the fantasy of existing in this virtual recreation of Africa.

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gantz85 said:

I think the fiercer animals do attack, but don't expect any combat system or QTE fights in the game. Probably fatality.

Also, the naming gives you a pretty good idea about the audience they are aiming towards.

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greepoman said:

I remember when people used to put this on their "awesome ps3 exclusives" list. Now it's MAG, Heavy Rain, KZ2, etc...wonder which will be the next "Afrika".

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BeeDog said:

He isn't a troll, just read his tag and you'll know. And I do agree with him, when IGN doesn't give a glowing preview, you should realize there might be problems with the game.

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AranhaHunter said:

No one should buy this "game".

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Kafel said:

I remember when this game was very impressive.

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greepoman said:

I remember when people used to put this on their "awesome ps3 exclusives" list. Now it's MAG, Heavy Rain, KZ2, etc...wonder which will be the next "Afrika".

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Gagaman said:

Because it's not on the Wii of course =P

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Kafel said:

I remember when this game was very impressive.

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BeeDog said:

Doesn't help your case when you jump into a topic, posting that snide remark with only a Xbox gamertag in your profile and a post history to prove it, bud.

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Doubledex said:

Every time I think about Afrika-The Game... I feel sad ;( So much potential.... but...
Photos? B+tich please!

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Jinfash said:

choppy framerate and invisible walls? notsureifwant.gif :/

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