Developer Realtime Worlds wowed gamers three years ago with the game Crackdown, which proved to be more than simply “the game that came with the Halo 3 beta.” Following up the success of Crackdown, RTW gave us the MMO A.P.B., a game that despite an awesome premise still hasn’t exactly caught on amongst gamers. Now Realtime Worlds have unveiled their latest project which could become the next big thing or yet another failed attempt at converging genres.
Titled Project: MyWorld, Realtime Worlds’ latest game is essentially an amalgamation of genres in a scope that truly encompasses the world. In Project: MyWorld players literally have the world at their fingertips as Realtime Worlds have created a virtual representation of planet Earth, complete with accurate city layouts and environmental terrain made with real-world data. Just imagine Google Maps on steroids and given an interactive edge to get a rough idea of what Project: MyWorld is.
The whole jest of Project: MyWorld is that it combines social networking with casual mini-games and user customization in a world that’s constantly evolving. Not only are cities such as London recreated in 1:1 detail, but users can actually add to the existing cities by creating new structures or editing existing ones. Users will of course be able to purchase buildings in the game for their own pleasure or even sell them to collect “rent.” A key goal Realtime Worlds has with MyWorld is creating a visual representation of social networking. So instead of going directly to sites like Facebook and Twitter, users can log into MyWorld and update their Facebook status when they’re not busy fishing in the plains of Scotland.
Yes, MyWorld will be more than a virtual interface for social networking as it’ll include several mini-games as well. The games of course are casual fare such as a fishing game but Realtime Worlds has high hopes for the amount of games that will be included in the service. Basically RTM seems to be aiming directly at Facebook, who over the course of the past year or so has become the giant of internet based casual gaming.
Dubbed a “virtual construction project” MyWorld certainly has a lot of potential. While it may not be a visual looker, it’s hard not to be impressed with the technology Realtime Worlds has created which allows them to create 1:1 matches of various places across the globe. I’m not entirely sold on MyWorld becoming the next big thing as a service like this will literally live and die based on the user community and the amount of content that is provided. Props should definitely be given to Realtime Worlds for attempting such a concept and it’ll be interesting to see the project evolve leading up to its 2011 release.
