Remember Ooga Booga? Announced by Sega late last year, the game was touted as a sort of strategy hybrid, which, as anyone who's seen it recently would attest to, can't begin to describe the game's fast-paced, twitch-heavy gameplay. We recently took a trip to Visual Concepts' San Rafael offices to get a firsthand look at the game. The project's producer, John Race, greeted us and subsequently briefed us about the game's every minute detail. Fans of quick and heavy online diversions should pay close attention.

　　

	See it in motion!
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	Care to hear some words from the project's head? Then click right here--we have an exclusive video interview with John Race of Visual Concepts, who's more than happy to go into the game's finer points just for you, only on GameSpot Live!

Ooga Booga is easily one of the most immediately engaging games we've seen recently. The game, according to Race, draws a good deal of inspiration from Nintendo's Super Smash Bros., and it shows. Essentially, up to four players are thrown into deathmatch maps of varying sizes and layouts and are made to battle it out using a sizable arsenal of weapons at their disposal. The nature of these weapons and maps, of course, is what defines the Ooga Booga experience. Both the game's quirky visuals and cartoonish dynamics are primarily responsible. Race describes the game's visual feel: "We're really drawing on a '60s version of Polynesian kitsch and tiki culture." The look is definitely spot on, and the themes remain coherent all throughout. The tempestuous island goddess Ooga Booga, as the story goes, has the land's four lords engage in a series of battles during every lunar cycle, and the winner gains her unfailing favor. The lords in question--the kahunas--serve as your avatars, and each one has his or her own distinct visual character, as well as a unique gameplay focus. The battles themselves take place on a series of islands, each with one distinct topography. "These competitions take the form of real fast, frantic gameplay. Ooga Booga spreads spells across the island, and you have to run and snatch them up and try to cast them in order to score points on other people," Race elaborates. The result is a gameplay dynamic very similar in spirit to Nintendo's smackfest, though it often feels just a bit more open-ended; the tools at your disposal feel a tad more varied, and since the game itself is played via a third-person perspective, the rules are by nature a bit more complex.

　　Hoodoo creeping in for the kill. Whether you play as Twitchy, the boar-riding kahuna, or Hoodoo, the semicorporeal kahuna, you can count on one thing: You'll be scrambling to collect quite a few shrunken heads. They are basically the game's lethal currency; you'll use them as projectiles, as well to fuel other types of attacks. They literally grow on trees and are scattered throughout the game's islands. But they aren't your only weapons; you'll also have a set of magical spells at your disposal, which are graciously scattered around the island at random intervals by the kind goddess. Along with the wild animals--the birds and the boars--that inhabit the island, these spells complement your mobile arsenal. Tikis, on the other hand--basically, idols that serve as stationary canons--are also gingerly placed throughout, which you can commandeer for the price of a few heads. These will fire a constant stream of projectiles at your enemies if they get too close. They're destructible, though, so placing them wisely is vital to using them effectively. In all, the collective arsenal is a like a good chemistry set--it facilitates a good number of scenarios off the bat, though only the morbidly curious will learn to use its more deadly configurations.

　　Race seems very pleased with the results: "It's weird [that] this turned out pretty close to exactly what we set to do. We were so focused on how we wanted to go with it--an online kind of Smash Bros. with almost some shooter elements worked into a third-person perspective. We're really proud of what we've done." Read on for a detailed look at the game's kahunas.

　　

Kahunas Big and Small

　　The game's cast is just as outlandish as the world it inhabits. When these kahunas battle it out for their goddess' favor, things get mighty volatile; they each have their own sets of characteristics and affinities, which they use to influence the overall tide of the battle. They each also have a whole bunch of different masks, which you unlock by means of single-player campaigns to allow you to personalize your kahuna--but to a limited extent. Keep in mind that the game also has a number of hidden characters, though we've been sworn to secrecy. You'll have to unlock them for yourself.

　　All characters share the same basic attacks--a hefty slap (a series of which can be executed in quick successions) and the ability to hurl shrunken heads. Spells, likewise, are open game. You can also make use of the boars and birds that inhabit the game's islands by merely stunning them with a shrunken head and then mounting them. The tikis, similarly, can be used by any and all. It's the tribes' particular affinities that will influence your decisions.

　　

Fatty

Fatties are the game's power hitters, though they're painfully slow. The fatty is your proverbial large oaf. As a tribe, the fatties are a fairly simple lot; eating and hunting often seem to be their sole concerns. This has its advantages, though--they pack quite a wallop, and they're the sturdiest tribe of them all. This means that they'll barely stir when smacked by fists, weapons, or boars, while their own physical attacks are all the more damaging. The downside is that they're pretty slow. Such is the price of power.

　　

Twitchy

From the beast-ridden wilds hails the twitchy tribe. Quite feral and ferocious--like their animal companions--the twitchies make up for their size in a number of ways. Primarily, they make optimum use of the beasts that inhabit the game's islands; they can ride the birds and boars for a longer time than any of the other kahunas. They also move much more quickly--they're the only tribe that can actually outrun a raging boar. Due to their small size, however, the twitchies are nowhere near as hardy as any of the other tribes. And once they're off their mounts, they'd better run--the slightest touch will send them flying.

　　

Fast and flea-ridden, the twitchy tribe is down with the beasts.

Able and well-balanced, the hotties are a tribe to be reckoned with.

Hotty

　　The hotty tribe provides Ooga Booga's most well-balanced character. Usually good characters to start out with, the hotties are well rounded and are able to engage in any combat-related activities quite adequately. They do enjoy one perk, though--they have an affinity for fire. Therefore, their fireball spells enjoy a greater level of effectiveness; and if a fireball hits them, their recovery time is significantly shortened.

　　

Hoodoo

The ghostly hoodoo tribe is made up of skilled magicians. While their physical forms have deteriorated due to a heavy reliance on unholy magic, the hoodoo tribe enjoys a number of benefits. The hoodoos seem to be magnets for dark fetishes, as they collect shrunken heads at twice the rate of the other tribes. Also, the cost they incur for claming tikis is significantly reduced. Their black magic has also granted them with heightened endurance, though at a serious cost--their physical attacks are significantly weaker than those of the other tribes.

　　

Multiplayer Tropical Combat

　　Ooga Booga's pacing is definitely its greatest asset. It grants the game an instant pick-up-and-play feel, though its wild dynamics also lend it a level of depth that reveals itself over time. The Ooga Booga team likes to refer to the game as being part of the "multiplayer tropical combat" category, and while we'd love to help them christen the new game, we're a bit more comfortable with more traditional descriptions. Still, the expression does accurately reflect the events you'll engage in. There are three event types present in the game, all of which mix up the rules sufficiently. All but one of the events keeps the winning conditions identical--at the end of a specified time limit (usually two minutes), the player with the most points wins the round, of which there are three. And depending on the event, different strategies will net you varying numbers of points.

　　Boar polo isn't the safest sport in the world. First, and most basic, is smakahuna. It serves as the prototypical deathmatch event, with all the players engaged in a bloody free-for-all. Next is the rodeo mode. Basically, it places on the map a single boar--access to which you must fight for. In this mode, the only way to score points is through the boar--other attacks will serve solely to stun the boar and prevent other players from mounting it. Needless to say, this is among the most frantic of event types. And finally, there's boar polo. Probably the most inventive of the events, it sets up you and your opponents on a soccerlike bi-leveled field, complete with goals and a boulder for a ball. To score points in boar polo, as you'd imagine, you must get the ball into the goal. Now, the fastest way to do so is by hitting it with the boar, but other methods exist. Throwing shrunken heads at the boulder can make for more precise shots, and slapping it in the desired direction is always an option.

　　But boars get angry if they take too much abuse. You'll know this when they turn red and begin to buck furiously in your direction. Race likens the boars to rocket sleds, which is a very accurate description--characters hit by boars will, more often than not, fly quite far, often off the island itself (only to have to swim back to shore). The implications of this are immediately apparent--an island full of angry boars is not a safe place to be. Luckily, the game provides a suitable respite to a death by tusk: the high-flying birds. Stun and grab one, and you'll be able to soar high above and pelt your enemies with heads from up high. Though the points you net by doing this are meager compared with those gained by more hands-on strategies, a few well-placed potshots can never hurt your score.

　　A combination of lightning and boar that perhaps should not be. Offsetting it all is a deadly set of spells. "The spells we have come out of the volcano--Ooga Booga distributes them across the island, so you never know where you're going to find one," explains Race, emphasizing the random nature of their distribution. There are five in all, each one focusing on a certain tactic. The fireball spells seems to be the most common; they send a mote of flame in the direction of your enemy and set them ablaze when they make contact. Enemies thus afflicted scramble for a bit before the flame extinguishes. The lighting bolt immobilizes your enemies, striking from above, and is able to affect large groups, provided they're bunched together. The land mines are self-explanatory--lay them and watch the unwary get nailed. The homing head, though, is pretty interesting; when activated, it switches you to a first-person perspective, allowing you to target enemies remotely. Once fired, it switches to a chase-cam view, allowing you to zero in on your target. The cataclysm spells, finally, are the game's most powerful; they invoke the power of Ooga herself, filling entire islands with her wrath. Though there are three types--tornados, lightning storms, and meteor showers--their effects are similarly devastating.

　　All in all, Ooga Booga will sadly serve as part of the Dreamcast's online swan song. This is indeed very sad, as it provides one of the most engaging online experiences we've seen on the console. But though the game was primarily designed as a multiplayer experience, it will offer in the neighborhood of 30 single-player scenarios, in which the game's many secrets will be locked.

　　We can't wait for you to get your hands on this one--as it stands now, the servers are pretty empty. The online experience is very engaging, rest assured, and we'll tell you more about it as soon as Visual Concepts will allow us. The game is set to ship in September, so the wait will not be too long. Stay tuned though, and watch Race talk about the game firsthand in our video preview.