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Set in the distant future, Genesis Rising tells the story of a humanity that has transcended the bounds of Earth and become something of a wandering god-race. They have developed half-organic, half-machine creatures called Orchinids to explore the cosmos for them. The Orchinids come in various shapes and sizes, and can adapt to situation depending on whatever genes they are loaded with.

The game looks to play like a cross between a real-time space strategy game and a squad based RPG. You start out with a certain number of ships, a mother ship and a few others. As you begin to explore the area and complete mission objectives you will come across new genes that you can add to your ships. You'll either find them hidden away in space, or salvage them from beaten enemies. In total there will be around 50 different genes that you can add to you ships. The genes will control everything from how tough your ships are to what special abilities they have. One of the areas where this game is less like an RTS and more like an RPG is the fact that units carry over from one mission to the next, and they become more powerful over time. If you lose a ship in a firefight, you'll have to create one (the mother ship literally births new ships) with out all the genes the other one had. So, keeping your ships alive from mission to mission will be very important. The game is supposed to have 30 single player mission that are dependent upon the player's choices through out the game. As the player explores the world they will encounter other races, the player's reaction to those races will affect the outcome of the game.

One of the the most unique aspects of this game, was their use of the graphical technology know as normal mapping. Normal mapping is what allows those brand new games like Doom 3 and Farcry to look so amazing and run so well. It basically copies the information from a high detail model, and through a special bit of code the game engine transposes the high detail visuals onto a low detail model. What this means in lay-man's terms is that the game is able to have a lot more eye-candy with out sacrificing system performance. Metamorph uses normal mapping to give their ships insane amount of detail. This detail really pops out to the player when you add new genes to your ships. When you do this, you can actually see the ships grow new appendages. And when you create a new ship, the mother ship splits open to give birth to the new Orchinid. The combination of the normal mapping and the fact that the ships grow right in front of your eyes really drives home the organic nature of these ships.

I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on a retail copy of Genesis Rising. Its not the usual fare for its publisher, Dreamcatcher, and hope that it pays off for them. The game is set for a fourth quarter holiday release. I suggest you keep your eyes open for it.