Evil Twin Cyprien's Chronicles Preview

In Utero has taken a decidedly darker approach in constructing a new gameworld filled with even more bizarre creatures for Ubi Soft's new platformer, Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles. In fact, Evil Twin is so different from Rayman 2 that you wouldn't suspect that it has anything in common with the lush, vibrant world and characters found in Rayman 2. But the two games have some striking similarities. Evil Twin follows the adventures of Cyprien, a small boy with a vivid and disturbing imagination that leads him into an entirely new world where characters--split in two--walk the streets, talking elephants drop from the sky to give helpful advice, and oridnary people become superheroes.

Evil Twin begins at a crumbling orphanage that Cyprien and several other children call home. Cyprien has become a guest of the orphanage because of the unexpected death of his parents, which occurred on his birthday a short while ago. The other children at the orphanage decide to throw a surprise party for Cyprien on his birthday, but seemingly unable to deal with all of the emotion, he storms out of the room, leaving the other children baffled. Just a few seconds later, a storm rages inside the room that Cyprien has left, and a creature with massive tentacles attacks the remaining children until they mysteriously disappear from the room. While all of this is happening, Cyprien is confronting his active imagination--which takes the form of a talking bear named Lenny--and expresses his desire to no longer be a child that creates characters like Lenny in his mind. He's then transported from the orphanage to a strange dreamlike world, where buildings are constructed out of torn cloth, the sky is covered with gray clouds, and strange creatures are waiting to attack you at every turn.

Upon entering the imaginary world, you find that Cyprien is equipped with a slingshot and little else, but then again, you don't really need anything else since most of your time is spent becoming familiar with the game's basic controls and some of Cyprien's primary abilities. The slingshot functions much in the same way Rayman's fireball attack did--you can use it from a third-person perspective or from a first-person perspective. The third-person view is useful if you want to ensure that no enemies attack you from behind or if you simply want to fire the slingshot rapidly at an enemy. The first-person view is more practical for making the precision or long-distance shots required for solving some of the game's puzzles, but since you can't see behind Cyprien in this view, he's vulnerable to attack, which might lead to a few annoying deaths. As useful as the slingshot is, nothing compares to Cyprien's other attack, an alternate personality--he physically changes into a character torn from a Dragon Ball Z cartoon with white hair, a superhero-like black costume, and the ability to shoot fireballs and streaks lightning from his hands.

SuperCyp Unleashed

In the early stages of Evil Twin, you come across items that look like small tiki masks, which are used for charging a small bar located near the top of the screen. Whenever a small portion of the bar is filled, you can change Cyprien into SuperCyp, an alternate character created by Cyprien's own imagination. SuperCyp has two basic attacks. One of these attacks is an incredibly powerful fireball that can obliterate an enemy in a single shot, and it has the added value of being able to propel SuperCyp in different directions when he uses it in midair. This becomes an especially important technique to learn later in the game when you'll need it to get across some of the more difficult jumps. However, it takes SuperCyp a few seconds to charge the fireball before releasing it, which leaves him open to enemies. SuperCyp's second attack is an impressive lightning strike that takes less than a second to charge and can be thrown in any direction. If you're ever caught within a large group of enemies, the lightning attack will be incredibly useful, but it drains the SuperCyp meter quickly, so you have to use it sparingly.

The control scheme in Evil Twin is similar to that in Rayman 2, so for those who are familiar with the previous game, controlling both Cyprien and his alter ego will be an easy task, and newcomers to In Utero's platformers should be able to jump right in as well. The opening level does a solid job of familiarizing you with Cyprien's jumping abilities--you literally jump from platform to platform, and mistimed jumps are fairly rare. But when you do happen to miss a jump, Evil Twin's camera system, which seems to have a mind of its own, is usually the culprit. The camera perspective changes at random times when you're walking up a straight path or when you're jumping through the air, and since movement is based on the camera perspective, you often walk into walls or plummet into the depths of the imaginary world. It's possible to stop momentarily and reset the camera so that it follows directly behind Cyprien, but you have to do it a little too often. Hopefully, these camera issues will be addressed before the game's final release.

Even at this early stage in development, Evil Twin's graphics look surprisingly sharp. Though the early levels and characters lack the vibrancy of those in Rayman 2, the levels are modeled very well and feature some incredible texturing. In addition, many of the atmospheric effects, such as lighting and fog, are used very well and successfully convey the sense that you're traveling through a unique dreamworld. Some of the character models are a little lacking when it comes to the number of polygons used, but the characters are still creative and look as though they were taken from a Lewis Carroll novel.

Evil Twin still has a few rough edges. The camera is unpredictable--more so than in most platform games--which is frustrating when you're attempting to make a precise jump. The game will include full voice acting for each character, though this feature wasn't fully implemented in the current build. Even though the environments and characters are drastically different from those in Rayman 2, fans of Rayman 2 should definitely keep an eye out for Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles.