Genre: First-Person Shooter
Publisher: Play Ten Interactive
Developer: Deep Shadows
Release Date: Q3 2008

When you think of the Caribbean, your mind likely conjures up images of warm, sandy beaches, surf and sun, and Johnny Depp in a rather flamboyant pirate costume. However, those beautiful islands hold a darker side of drugs and voodoo, which Play Ten Interactive plans to highlight in their latest title, White Gold: War in Paradise.

There's not a lot of detail out there concerning the game's plot, but we know that it revolves around a secret agent who has been sent to the islands due to a rash of deaths linked to a new designer drug nicknamed "White Gold." However, the region is in the midst of volatile civil unrest, with several different factions fighting for control. Your character is caught in the middle, and you'll be required to tackle several missions for each faction in order to get to the bottom of this mysterious new killer.

Perhaps the best description of the gameplay of White Gold is that it appears to be a mixture of Oblivion and Far Cry. While the meat of the game is in shooting baddies and operating vehicles, there is a fairly robust set of RPG elements as well. There are six different factions at war on the islands, and working with one faction will increase your standing with that group, at the cost of influence with others, something with which Mercenaries fans are intimately familiar. This is shaping up to be a meaty title, with at least 60 missions in the main story mode, and hundreds of side-quests and free-roaming opportunities. Shoot, if you get bored, you could always just go hijack a tank or helicopter and shoot up a bunch of islands. In summary, there are plenty of missions to tackle and NPCs who need your help, so it's up to you to determine your own path.

The visuals are already showing a lot of polish, and it looks like all that's really left is just cleaning up a few minor glitches and adding the finishing touches. Currently, White Gold is touting very nice lighting and shadow effects, as well as expressive character animations and a lush island setting. We're getting to a point where a lot of good-looking games don't even get noticed anymore, but when developers work hard to create a world so realistic that it sucks you in, it's something that deserves to be noticed.

One area of White Gold that does need a lot of work is in the dialogue and voice acting components. Due to the fact that the game is being developed in Eastern Europe, the script is currently very choppy and the voice actors aren't very good at all. However, this is likely a localization issue, and hopefully, the script will be properly translated and the voice acting completely re-recorded long before the game ships.

White Gold: War in Paradise is shaping up to be a game for those who are looking for the open-world exploration of Oblivion, but with more stuff to destroy. The scale of this title is massive, and it will be quite the undertaking to pull it off. However, the Deep Shadows team is hard at work, and if the early demo is any indication, the fruits of their efforts could pay off in a big way. White Gold is scheduled for a fall release on both the PC and Xbox 360, so this may end up as a game to keep in mind when it's time to draw up that Christmas shopping list.