We're back to bring you a taste of some of the great games that you can expect see, and hopefully play, in the coming months. This is by no means a comprehensive list - we figure the average attention span for an article drops off rapidly past a certain point - but we've got some great stuff to talk about here. Let's get started.
What's Happening this Month?
Let there be foliage! Ever since the release of Far Cry in 2004, a number of games have followed the trend of being set in exotic jungle locations with lots of greenery everywhere you point your AK-47. Haze continues this trend as an exclusive title for the PlayStation 3. In this politically charged first person shooter, you play as a member of the Mantel Corporation whose mission is to take down the one man whose dealings with a drug called nectar have been stirring up a fair amount of trouble in the world. But when you find out the truth behind Mantel's motives, you are faced with joining your enemy's forces, along with a few questions. Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? Which side am I on? [Ed: Looking at the Haze website, I'm not sure Mantel Corporation looks even remotely reputable.]
With a proven track record for creating shooters like TimeSplitters, plus Managing Director David Doak's work on GoldenEye, Free Radical has created what looks to be a force to be reckoned with in the FPS genre and a welcome addition to the roster of PlayStation 3 exclusive titles. Haze will be released in May with a lengthy single player/4-person co-op campaign and support for up to 24 players online via the PlayStation Network. Further details should be available later this month.
Staunch PC gamers who cringed when BioWare released their action/RPG Mass Effect as an Xbox 360 exclusive late last year will finally get some relief as the space epic makes its way to PC. Known for their creation of such titles as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire, BioWare expands on their role-playing roots with real-time versus turn-based combat, and a rich story line whose outcome largely depends on the decisions made by the player. In Mass Effect you play as John Shepherd, a freedom fighter who leads his team on a galactic adventure to take down a former comrade who has taken a turn for the worse.
According to BioWare's technical producer, Derek French, Mass Effect on PC utilizes DX9 rendering with "no promises" made regarding DX10. Much like Epic's PC release of Gears of War, the game runs on Unreal Engine 3 with graphical enhancements including a revamped graphical user interface that precludes to Mass Effect from being a simple port of an Xbox 360 game. While system requirements are still being fleshed out, gamers can expect similar hardware specs for other recent releases running on Unreal Engine 3, such as Bioshock and Unreal Tournament 3.
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BladeVenom - Thursday, May 8, 2008 - link
This is the list I use. http://www.systemwars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=...">http://www.systemwars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=...A DRM warning about Mass Effect and Spore.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...">http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...
DigitalFreak - Thursday, May 8, 2008 - link
No way in hell I'll be buying Mass Effect or Spore with that DRM.mmntech - Thursday, May 8, 2008 - link
Agreed. I was looking forward to Mass Effect on PC. I feel like I wasted $170 on the HD 3850 I bought to play it. PC gaming is dead and DRM is the box they're burying it in.There were two huge games missing from the list. The first is LittleBigPlanet which is probably one of the most anticipated PS3 games coming out this year. The Force Unleashed is another big one, even just from a technical standpoint with Euphoria and DMM. 2008 is going to be a good year for consoles. I'm glad I finally caved in and bought one rather than suffering with PC and SecuROM.
Heatlesssun - Friday, May 9, 2008 - link
You're making way to much of the SecureROM thing. I've got a couple of games using it, Call of Juarez and DirT and I'm not having any issues on Vista, both x86 and x64.Also you're failing to realize that most PC games are available via a download service, which use net authentication schemes. PC gaming is far from dead. With out PC's, there'd be no hardware to go into consoles as consoles are loss leaders. AMD and nVidia wouldn't make it on console sales alone. They need to be able to sell dedicated GPU's to make money and have some for the R&D that ends up in consoles.
Viva la PC Gaming!
EddieTurner - Thursday, May 8, 2008 - link
Was reading about that earlier. Man, what a freakin' killjoy. Somebody whould be shot for making that decision.Spacecomber - Thursday, May 8, 2008 - link
I latch onto a handful of PC games a year that I play, and I recognize that there are many other games out there that I'll never get around to playing, especially since I have no plans on a picking up a console any time soon. So, it's nice to have a kind of overview of the electronic gaming universe. I'll never be able to explore it all, but I'm sure some of these new games will find there way onto my hard drive.PrinceGaz - Thursday, May 8, 2008 - link
That sums up my feelings too. I only play a few games but play them a lot. I also have no need or desire to buy a console for the sort of games I like most, and judging from the fact that 12 of the 16 games listed are shown as getting a PC release (and one or two of the other four may well get a PC release later on), PC gaming is far from dead.Griswold - Thursday, May 8, 2008 - link
Well said.Rocket321 - Thursday, May 8, 2008 - link
I really liked the article, keep them comming!vexingv - Thursday, May 8, 2008 - link
This list makes me hesitant to put a $500 investment into buying a PS3 solely to play MGS4 and GTA4 (which will probably be ported to PC). So many of these games are multiplatform and being released on the PC as well. However, I'm concerned whether the PC ports are even comparable to their console counterparts as the PC is hardly the lead platform anymore and usually winds up as the bastard child.