In the corner, the subdued shimmer of a blade unsheathed. Prey. Swiftly, behind the rock, peek around. He's alone, unaware, unescorted, unprepared. Perfect. Their base is far, our goal is not. My allies, likewise, scattered far - too far. It's just us in this dusty crevice, it shall be our wits against the other's.

I know it, at least; he doesn't. He plods along unwarily, sword bobbing. A trap, perhaps? Could be. But he shall not pass.

It is time. Spring out from behind the rock, a shriek echoing through the chamber, and we are locked in battle, joined in Fury.

Overly dramatic? Perhaps, but such an episode is the stock and trade of Auran's upcoming Action MMO, Fury. While still a ways off, with a launch target of Q4-07, Auran, and their publishers at the amusingly-named Gamecock, bused the F13 GDC crew out away from the hustle and bustle of the show floor to an old Masonic lodge where they'd set up shop for the duration of the conference.

We got in a few minutes of talkery, but then, well, and I quote: "Let's have a fight."

So there, in a grand burgundy-carpeted hall better suited to an Illuminati summit than a gathering of developers, we mainlined a straight-into-the-vein injection of hands-on Furiousness. Promptly seated at two small tables, we plunged headfirst into the game with only a cursory introduction. Bam, I'm staring through a camera floating behind some dude in an armored purple jumpsuit. Cool.



Upon dropping into the world, the first impression is: Holy Pixelshaded Lightmapped Christ this is shiny. No expense has been spared in building Fury's artwork, and they really show off the Unreal 3 engine's capabilities. In fact, it's so pretty it's distracting - I ran around for a good minute watching my ass glisten and glint with shadery shinosity, and, in the heat of battle, there's so many pretty effects flying around it can get a little difficult to tell what's happening. At least, for a newbie with tired feet.

The controls took some getting used to. In order to keep one hand free to shoot fire at your opponent, movement, targeting and camera are primarily controlled with the mouse. WASD also works, and I found myself falling back into that mode on occasion, but the speed of the game strongly encourages you to keep your fingers mashing the number bar. It's pretty standard MMO third-person control fare beyond that; click on a target, smack a number button to use an ability, rightclick to control camera, both-click-and-hold to move forward.

The devs started us up in a sort of 4-on-4 capture-the-flag variant called Vortex - meant for 16 on 16, to be honest. In this game-type, two groups compete to collect these alien crystal egg things that get dropped by a flying thing, murdering each other in an attempt to collect 'em all - or steal them from the other side. Grabbing one causes big green crystal hemorrhoids to erupt from your ass - oh, and you can't attack while hugging that egg, of course. That's up to your teammates. Green Crystal Preparation H doesn't help - you'll have to drop it at a collection point at your base if you want the neon burning to stop. Get enough eggs dropped off and ding, gratz, game, set, match. My team, with a Gamespot pubbie and a dev filling in the other two slots, won the day with our superior F13 strategy and tactics: "stick together, assholes".



Having won, we were presented with a selection of phat lewtz appropriate to our group's collective awesomeness; items are selected and rolled on, and Essence points - basically currency for buying new abilities and more gear - are awarded. The losing side got some love too, I hear.

We then played a more standard free-for-all called Bloodbath. This involved running around a powerup-strewn arena shooting fire and shit at each other, trying to tag the guys with the highest scores - because they'd give you the most points. The devs, knowing their classes and objectives better, won by a good margin, but we still all got some Essence and loot.

Not demoed were the 32-on-32 "Fortress" game and the hardcore 4-on-4 Elimination game types. In these, larger teams operate on more complex objectives to compete for Victoly!.

There's a couple things that make Fury unique. Its core game, not so much - minute to minute, it plays like a version of Guild Wars on methamphetamine, albeit with a much greater degree of ability customization. Select a target and start mashing buttons, sure, but there's some strategy behind what you're mashing due to the Fury system. Most of your abilities will dragonball you up in a given power sphere, making you do incrementally more damage as you keep using them. However, other powerful abilities will deplete this charge, giving you the option to do either a steady stream of damage and effects or to dump out huge burst damage or battle-shifting specials.

Also unlike Guild Wars, instead of competing between Guilds and pickup groups, competition is between Servers or "Realms".

Wait, what? Between servers? Yeah, Auran's using server affiliation extensively to form giant teams that extend beyond your immediate social circle. The people you interact directly with in lobbies will all be from your realm, they're all your buds. You're all in this together to fight against the Yellow Realm's asshats and the Blue Realm's shitheels. In fact, realms can cooperate to dump spare Essence into various "Obelisks". Whatever realm dumps enough Essence into a given obelisk in a given time period gains some bonuses - examples I do not have, offhand.

There's also no real permanent choices in Fury, aside from realm affiliation (and even that can be changed - one free realm-change, then further changes for a fee). You'll be able to, with sufficient time investment, to use any equipment and learn any ability that you so desire, although you'll only be able to slot so many items and powers in any single engagement.



Auran's goal is for a fast, fun game with some persistent aspects that you can jump in at lunchtime or in a spare half-hour, have some fun immediately, and then put down - if you need to - without falling behind your poopsocking guildmates. They've certainly got the fast part down; Fury's pace is on par with a 2D fighting game. And communication among a group should be less of a problem, given that there'll be VOIP built-in for no extra fee.

Is it fun? Well, that's a hard question to answer, but I enjoyed the 30 minutes of fire-flinging we got in that eldritch meeting hall. It'll certainly be worth beta'ing this fall for those of you looking for an action-fest. However, their business model is still unannounced - all we could get out of them is that "Fury is a hybrid game, and therefore will have a hybrid business model". Their website, however, states that Fury will be free out of the box (Red Alert! Mouthbreathing 14-year-olds ahead), with an optional subscription of unknown benefit.
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