Hands On: P.N.03
First impressions from Capcom's unique action title.
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March 03, 2003 - The big "Capcom Five," a set of five high-profile GameCube games announced by Capcom late last year, has at last begun making its way into the public eye as Capcom put the first of the games, P.N.03: Product Number 03, on demo in Tokyo over the weekend. IGN was on hand to sample this latest title from Shinji Mikami, the mastermind of Resident Evil, and Hiroyuki Kobayashi, the producer of the original Devil May Cry.
One word seems to sum up the game quite well based on our experience: original. P.N.03 plays differently from just about every character-based action game out there, and that includes other titles made by Capcom itself. Good? Bad? With our limited 20 minutes play time, we can't judge for sure, but what we saw certainly left us impressed.
You take control of Vanessa Schneider (there will be no Peer-related jokes in this article), an assassin for hire some time in the future. We're not sure how much story will figure into P.N.03, but the end result has your leading Vanessa through a series of missions in which you take on and take out countless robotic enemy creatures.
The term "Mission" is actually Capcom's wording, not ours. From what we can tell, P.N.03 is pure arcade-style gaming. The first stage of the game begins in a dusty desert wasteland, with your attempting to get into a base in the near distance. There aren't any puzzles to solve -- just progress into the building, taking out any enemy robots you encounter along the way. Once inside, you march through a series of hallways, blasting enemies, then proceed outside for even more carnage, and so-forth. Eventually, you arrive at a boss of sorts, a collection of more powerful robots.
It may sound somewhat generic when taken just as a description, but P.N.03 is more than just a standard kill-fest. While your goal is to destroy enemies that you encounter, you also have to avoid their attacks. And that's where the game differentiates itself from other action titles: the way in which it keeps you engaged in defensive/offensive duals with enemies in front of you.
The scene outside AsoBitCity in Akihabara on
Sunday. Capcom threw away the posters without
even asking if we wanted them (and we did!)
At the heart of the game is its unique control system, which resembles something akin to a first person shooter, despite P.N.03 taking place entirely in the 3rd person. The analogue pad makes Vanessa move forward or step backward (while still facing forward). Pressing right or left pivots her around. The two analogue shoulder buttons are used for side stepping, with the face buttons used for firing your primary gun, putting Vanessa into a crouching position and jumping. Aside from the primary attack, you can input commands into the D-pad to pull off special attacks. You can also perform a 180 degree turn in case you need to turn back in a rush.
Free movement in any direction ala your typical action game is clumsy with the control setup, but that doesn't seem to be the point of the game. Instead, the controls keeps you focused on the scene in front of your character, without resorting to a "lock-on" button. The result is that you can take hiding behind a wall, dash out into the open, fire a few blasts, duck behind the protection of a barrier on the floor, roll out into the open to fire a few more blasts, do a backflip into a standing position, fire a few more blasts, do a couple of summersaults to avoid enemy fire, and take hiding behind another wall, all while continuing to face forward (we did something akin to this). Vanessa automatically aims at enemy targets, but you can switch off between enemies at the push of a button.
Click the image for a translation
of the P.N.03 control setup.
This control set-up works particularly well in the enclosed hallways, but what about in open areas? Our first time with the game resulted in almost instantaneous death, as we made the mistake of rushing ahead and found poor Vanessa surrounded by enemy units. On our second time through, we took a more deliberate pace, taking out any enemies within sight before advancing. The outside areas are set up with debris and mounds of dirt providing shielding in place of the walls and panels of the halls. Vanessa herself can shoot far into the distance with pin-point accuracy, and by taking our time, we were able to get by without a scratch.
Don't take this to mean that P.N.03 is a tactical snore-fest. The enemies are anything but passive. In the outer area at the beginning of the first level, the enemy robots in the distance send off flying pods, which you have to destroy before they get behind you and start blasting away. Elsewhere, in the hallways, the more constricted outdoor areas and the level one boss encounter, you're constantly in the heat of things, meaning that you can't just take cover behind a barrier and hope for the best. You've gotta take the enemies on or you'll be taken on by them.
There's some added incentive to playing well. By collecting points throughout the level, you can purchase upgrades to Vanessa's weapons and suit, and can even obtain special attacks. Vanessa actually has a number of different space suits available to her, also selectable from the shop screen. You automatically go to the purchase screen once you've completed a mission, but we also found a shop in the middle of a level, suggesting that changing suits may be essential for progression.
The first level of play was pretty simple overall, allowing us to do just fine with Vanessa's standard suit, but things seem to get more complicated as the game progresses. From what we could see, the levels grow larger and offer multiple paths along with more complex enemies who fire in trickier patterns. Vanessa begins dodging tiny missiles at one point, which looks somewhat Matrix-ish.
The look of the game through the areas that we saw reflects its subject-matter well. Set in the future, the outside areas look like dusty, debris-filled wastelands, where the sun's been shining a bit too hard for a bit too long. Go inside, and everything has a cold, metallic, manufactured look to it. There's much variety to the levels in color schemes, objects and, as mentioned immediately above, layout. We were a bit worried that the game would end up repeating the same dusty outdoor level and white indoor level that you've seen in all the trailers, but that, thankfully, doesn't seem to be the case.
It's not your typical action game, or your typical gaming world, but then again, the main character Vanessa isn't your typical character. We're not sure of the complete details behind her history, but we presume professional dance is listed somewhere in there. Vanessa likes to do a combination of dance and gymnastics as she takes out enemies. She shakes her little booty as she blasts away, and does cartwheels and flips when side-stepping and unleashing super attacks. We couldn't hear any voices coming from the game, unfortunately, but aside from that she seems to have all the personality of a Dante, only in tight clothing that's sure to grab attention.
Our limited playtest left us wanting to play more of P.N.03, and you can bet we'll do so when the game sees Japanese release on the 27th. Stay tuned!
-- Anoop Gantayat, Contributor
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Mijn pa kocht ze gelukkig altijd lekker duckhunt spelen en mario vet man. 
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Ik kon Frost maar niet vinden, maar eindelijk heb ik haar. Gelijk ook maar Konquestmode uitgespeeld. Speel altijd op medium en Arcade moet ik nog uitspelen met: Cyrax, Jax, Reptile, Frost, J Cage, Drahium, Sonya en Kitana. Dus het einde begint in zicht te komen. Ik weet niet of ik echt alle kisten ga openen hoor, er zit wel erg veel bagger tussen.
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) maar het gaat nu wel heel snel met items vinden. Zodra je de power bombs vindt dan heb binnen no-time ook de x-ray visor en de grapple beam. Naar mijn idee gaat dat een beetje te snel (had wel een boss tussen gemogen of zo). 
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Dacht mooi weer een kabel kwijt te zijn, maar helaas 
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