As recently leaked, Omega Five is Hudson's next XBLA game to ship after July's Bomberman Live. At a blogger event today, Hudson briefly showed this chaotic Natsume-developed title, and I got a chance to helm a floating ninja-like character in this side-scrolling shoot-'em-up world.

What?

Yes. Not the first shooter to star human characters, Omega Five sure has a lot of "strange" going for it. But that could be a good thing.

I flew my ninja around the screen while shooting at mostly-robotic enemies. Some rose out of the detailed, 3D backgrounds, while others appeared at screen edges. I had a few guns to knock down the opponents, but I couldn't execute a few commands that the game supports: sending a dog companion out to attack enemies and switching to a sword attack.


My session was brief, and I also had trouble with the in-development movement controls. While Hudson mentioned that this could change, the demo build let players aim in a direction different than the movement while using only one thumbstick. Somehow, the character moves slower than the aim, so a quick flick swings the gun in a new direction without changing movement. It seems like an interesting approach, and I might have figured it out with more play time.

Even though there's a lot of development room left before the game's Fall 2007 release, it already looked good and holds potential; 3D backgrounds and characters popped off the 2D game surface. Two-player co-op is also expected on a single console. While so many shoot-'em-ups seem similar, the strangeness of Omega Five may attract new players, while the under-development gameplay may win them over.