A day-long series of presentations from Korean Game Makers shows that in Korea, electronic entertainment has more Genres, more Online, more Multiplayer, and more Girls.

A report by Justin Hall and Jane Pinckard.

The business conference on the first day of the World Cyber Games unfortunately coincided with an unseasonable cold snap. To make matters worse we found out that the conference hall could not be heated until November - as building managers were following rules. So we sat shivering in the sparsely populated auditorium in our coats, warming our hands under the laptop as we listened to one young man in a suit read aloud, in flawless English, PR materials from a variety of Korean game developers.

Game Park Boy Advance 32

As featured in the basement halls of E3, we were shown the Korean answer to the GameBoy Advance. The Game Park (GP32) is a portable console about the size of a GBA, and it works as an MP3 player with officially-licensed wireless connectivitiy peripherals. We saw footage of two gamers sitting side by side playing against each other - no strings attached. Why not show them sitting on opposite sides of a classroom? Anyhow - its price - about US$150.00 - may prevent it from truly competing with the US$79 GBA, at least for now.

Cutey Fatty?

WECOM was proud to present the bizarre arcade shooter Cutey Fatty. The story, since shooting games must have stories, is about a 100kg cute fat girl who wants to be a supermodel. To lose weight and reach her goals, she must battle junk foods - flying up the screen shooting hamburgers and cookies with bits of sushi. The level one boss is Chocolate Cake. Mini-games include pressing the buttons rapidly between levels - the faster you press, the faster Cutey Fatty jumps rope and the more weight she loses. The absurdity was confusing, if funny. If the target market is girls, as it seems to be, then the premise is, well, a little obnoxious. Don't expect to see this title in the States any time soon.

Whitestorm

A far more marketable title was Whitestorm, by Digital Dream Studio. It's a beautifully rendered rescue mission simulation game incorporating stunts, racing, and mission-based levels on snowmobiles. Taking some of the tricks and scenery of the realistically-modelled levels of SSX and adding missions looked like it could be fun. The graphics and scenery were sharp, if a bit white - seems like the developers really took advantage of the NVidia graphics processor. Of all the games we saw, Whitestorm appeared most likely to sell overseas. Maybe coming soon to an Xbox near you - if you can find one of Microsoft's consoles on the Eurasian continent.

Gungriffon Divide

Another title that looks to be fun and profitable is Gungriffon Divide, by Kama Digital Entertainment. After all, what's not to like about the tried-and-true formula of giant mechs armed to the teeth? Well, this game promises to be faster, more exciting, with better articulated handling and targetting - for example, you can target and shoot in two different directions at once with your seperate weapons. Sounds pretty cool, if a bit complicated, but we didn't get to see anyscreenshots of the HUD (Heads Up Display) so we're not sure how smooth the interface will be. The action reminds me visually of the Mainframe animated series Heavy Gear which, although thin on plot, had some great animated action sequences involving fluid fast motion of mechs as they skated around an arena racing and battling each other. This multiplayer PC game should do decently if Microsoft doesn't release MechWarrior 5 simultaneously.

Outpost

HaneolSoft is developing a game, currently in closed beta, which they bill as "the first ever totally 3d online military simulation game". And what, exactly, is America's Army? or that World War II multiplayer online game that the Penny Arcade guys were playing so much of? Well, whatever. Outpost puts players in a World War III situation and gives them a lot of world to scout, crawl over, and lay prone on top of. The promotional video for this game ran way too long on a screen too small and too far away. Picture Everquest with guns and grenades. This game emphasizes group play - form batallions with other players and stage team combat between opposing groups. Nothing super innovative, but it looks pretty fun and detailed and "realistic", so we might be signing up for the open beta this winter.

Multiplayer, Multiplayer, Multiplayer

South Korea is among the most widely wired nations in the world - over 60% of homes have broadband connections. Today we saw examples of multiplayer online games that might take better advantage of these connections - a wider array of genres and target markets. This much market diversity for multiplayer probably won't come to the States for some time - broadband hasn't reached enough of the population to support a range of games like these.

iSurf's All of Racing (AOR) - looks as good as GT3, plus you can hop online and race your friends! Drive around long, beautiful tracks modelled after scenic routes around the world, beat online opponents, win money to customize your car. Now if you have spent too much time playing a driving game and you have a wacky personalized ride, other people can see it.

Navy FIELD from SD EnterNET company also gives players the chance to customize vehicles after online victories - except in this case, the vehicles are historically-modelled battlecruisers from World War II. Up to 128 players can manuever their British, German, Japanese or US WWII warships in a game room; massively multiplayer point-and-click online bathtub battleship.

Massively Multiplayer Online Religion

There were a number of Korean online RPGs, melding the gameplay of Lineage and Everquest with the graphics of Final Fantasy. Often aesthetics derived from religious metaphors and mythologies seemed to the best way to distinguish one game from another.

Imazic used the Unreal engine to create the MMORPG Sephiroth. A 3-D wandering RPG, like Everquest with better graphics (and no HUD?). We thought "Sephiroth" was the name of the sexy white-haired character in Final Fantasy VII, but turns out to be a Hebrew word for sphere, associated with the tree of life in Kabbalah. The game has mytho-religious themes: in the beginning of creation, you battle gods and demons in a classic struggle of good versus evil, with three races struggling for dominance: the Humans, the Nephilim, and the Titans. It looked nice, if a lot like Phantasy Star On-line.

Religious themes are part of the visual aesthetic of Uriinterative's online RPG, Kong Jac King, as well, although it takes its design cues from esoteric Buddhism rather than from Judaio- Hellenic mysticism. Like many of the Korean multiplayer games, it emphasizes co-operative team seige play, economy, and leveling up to raise skills. But it looks straight outta 1995 - exactly like Diablo 2, in fact, both the interface and graphics.

Another game we were shown incorporated religion in a much more specific way - ApplePie Online. The game features ingame email, video and text chat functionality to coordinate relationships. Cutesy characters perform ordinary RPG functions - fighting evil with swords and sorcery. But there is a "Catholic church" in the game where you can marry other players. And then if you want to get a divorce? You have to pay a penalty! ApplePie Online will support multiple languages so you might have a chance to try morality in online game-based socializing.

Gunbound by Softnyx is a turn-based shooting strategy game (think: cutesy high-res Scorched Earth). It looks simple, and in the way of many simple games, extremely fun. Players can set the rules and conditions for victory to vary the gameplay, and the graphics are cartoony, touted as "clean and cute" (and obviously designed to appeal to girl gamers, too). The game will use P2P technology - multiplayer games aren't hosted by the server, but rather hosted between players over the net.

We were curious about the touted social architecture of Bangsonggame, a "Power Community Game" for the PC. Some users play entertainers (singer, actor or comedian), and some users play family, fans, or managers of these pop stars. The game offers chat as well as homepage hosting. A promising amalgam of social online technologies, it also features web to mobile online game linkages. There's extensive fashion choices as well - how multiplayer social adventures in the context of pop entertainment will fare remains to be seen.

KokoLook

The best looking game to our eyes had to be KokoLook, a - what was it? - "fashion management simulation" for the PC. You play as a talented 13-year old fashion designer manque, a girl named Koko. You must create designs to sell, and use your money to take classes at fashion school. You will have to gather data about current trends and what customers want by visiting playgrounds and cafes and talking to people. When you leave the town you will be attacked by giant bunnies, which you can defeat with your oversized scissors. It's not clear whether you can then use the rabbit fur to trim your creations. The game uses soft anime-style graphics with crisp clear colors and almost watercolory backgrounds. The elements of economy, information- gathering, fashion creation, and light combat will give a player a lot of variety of things to do. This game is available in Korea now - we saw it at the Daejeon Lotte Mart for only 19,000 won (about $16). We were tempted - this game might be worth learning Korean for!

Clearly this was not a survey of the entire Korean games industry as several notable companies were not represented. We were looking forward to the latest from online multiplayer champion NCsoft, as well as offerings from some of Korea's provocative mobile game developers. Either way, there are so many more genres of game in Korea than we've found in the United States. We're excited to see these games come to fruition here, especially the online offerings. Hopefully Korea will be able to sign up some multiplayers from other countries and people can continue to enjoy varied themes and types of gameplay online.