If you spot two pandas mauling each other on the streets of Tokyo any time soon, we hope you’re playing Playstation.
An English language release has today been announced for a popular Japanese game, Tokyo Jungle, the trailer for which tells it all (almost): “Humans have mysteriously disappeared from Tokyo, animals have taken over.”
So, through a cityscape modelled on the metropolis many of us call home, creatures roam and roar through the streets, and battle for survival. Will they form a society, or just ransack Ben & Jerry’s? We aren’t sure, but they’d better watch out, we could have sworn we saw a dinosaur on the Yamanote Line. Animal lovers and anti-cruelty organisations, look away now, the game looks bloody, and comes with an adults only certificate to match.
The scenery looks vaguely like Tokyo, in as there are many familiar advertising boards and karaoke signs lining the tops of the buildings, and some of the rendering is quite realistic, especially down in the Metro stations. Seeing skyscrapers with greenery bursting out of the tops intrigues us – was this the job of some militant anti-zoo campaigners gone wrong?
Tokyo Jungle has a ‘Story Mode’, which takes the player through a variety of animals with “intertwined existences” with the goal of working out just where all those people went. Or you could try Survival Mode, and “secure future generations and resist extinction” by hunting for food and working in packs.
Or you could just take your kangaroo and go punch a lion.
Tokyo Jungle has ushered its way into the market with a hint at video game store staff (or the coders who develop the Sony Playstation Store)… Just where should they stack the copies? Of course, in the ‘Urban Based Animal Survival Genre’ section.
Read more at the Playstation Blog or watch the trailer below. Via The Verge.
