Arxel's Tribe

Half-French, half-Slovenian, all weird. Yes, it's Arxel Tribe, the brains behind games such as Ring, Faust, Trainz and .. er .. Paddington Bear. The pan-European developer had a range of games on show at this year's ECTS, including Ring 2, the sequel to their best-selling adventure game, loosely inspired by Wagner's Ring cycle (rather than the cult Japanese horror movie of the same name). Moving on from the old point and click days of yore, Ring 2 features 3D characters against a pre-rendered backdrop, producing some eye-catching graphics. The gameplay has advanced somewhat as well, with less mind-destroying Myst-style puzzles and more interaction with the environment. Also on show was a very early demo build of Hannibal, a sequel of sorts to the cannibalistic character's last movie. Sadly there wasn't much of a game to see at this stage, but the graphics look respectable if a little dark. On the other side of the stand The Gladiators was looking closer to completion, offering a tactical-focused approach to the real-time strategy genre, with lots of frantic action rather than tedious base building and resource gathering. And last but not least there was Mistmare, an ambitious first person role-playing game with skill-based character development and some rather tasty looking graphics. We'll be taking a closer look at that one later...