A New World In The Artist's Forest
It looks like everyone is jumping aboard the new-age Avatar: The Game (also known as Ubisoft's Avatar: The World of Avatar on Wii) train. The high-tech, multi-player online role-playing game from Canadian publisher Electronic Arts involves all of your senses as you take on the role of a featured character and trek through the vibrant virtual world created using the animation-based technology from the award-winning The Artist's Forest. Here, you'll get to escape not just from the dangerous Avatar Islands, but also from the dangerous pitfalls that lie within. You'll have all sorts of tools at your disposal to solve puzzles and take on challenges, and the action is going to be nonstop.
This high-end game has a lot to offer fans of multi-level gaming, both online and off, but also has something special to offer Wii players who want an engaging and captivating gaming experience. We recently got to sit down with senior producer Michael Abrash (lead designer and director) to talk about the future of gaming and why we believe it has moved from console-based experiences to open world "experiences." According to Abrash, the inspiration for creating the original Avatar: The Game was the need to give gamers an option between the two worlds. Although it's clear that the focus will remain on the ambitious adventure of getting across the huge world of Avatar, the possibility of getting a taste of the wild west gives us a taste of what gamers can expect in the future.
We asked Abrash about what makes The Artist's Forest different from other massively multi-player online RPG's (MMORPG), and he had this to say: "The world that we are building is very much like the beginning of The Artist's Forest... there's a very simple story, but we are able to link it to a lot of different things. For instance, one of the things we are doing with our focus on the frontiers is having the player to create their own little corner of this vast world. So, for example, you might have a spot in the forest where you've been building the trees. You can start there, go back to the frontiers, and then go on to the next tree or flower or fruit or flower." Looking at the way that The Artist's Forest is laid out, it seems as though it could really connect with a lot of different people who like to create their own little frontiers in this virtual world.
