Holiday 2008 (Pending Slippage)
Fans of sandbox action titles experienced one of the largest playing fields in such a game to date when Just Cause launched in 2006 from Eidos Interactive. Instead of the city-sized map that most of us have come to expect, the map scale was closer to that of a small country and consisted of a series of islands. While it would take more than a day's time for your character to walk from one end of the map to the other, Just Cause made sure we had plenty of land, air, and sea vehicles to get to our next destination. And if you were flying, you could simply jump out of your plane and freefall for three full minutes from the map's outrageously high canopy before pulling your parachute. [Ed: Bah! Who needs a parachute?]
Just Cause 2 promises an equally large scale map with improved graphics to boot. This time around, Eidos has decided to get rid of all the repetitive side missions that players were required to complete in the previous game, thus focusing entirely on the game's story. So, will you still be able to drive a motorcycle off a cliff, jump off of it in mid-air, land on the tail of a helicopter, kick the pilot out, fly it over a busy street, jump out, pull your chute, use your grapple gun to latch onto a vehicle below, reel yourself in, land on the vehicle, kick out the driver, and then drive away? Absolutely. In Just Cause 2, not only will you be able to perform outrageous stunts, the new and improved grapple gun will allow you to pull them off much easier as it can be used on any object in the game, including your enemies. Expect Just Cause 2 to be released during the 2008 holiday season.
Gears of War made quite a name for itself long before the official release. Originally slated to be an Xbox 360 launch title, the game's delays only added to the hype factor. With stunning graphics and intuitive character design, the game appeared to rival anything released on the console thus far when it finally hit the shelves in late 2006. As it happens, the game delivered on all fronts. And now, with Gears of War 2 officially announced, the hype factor is back in full force.
When the sequel was announced at the 2008 Game Developers Conference, lead designer Cliff Bleszinski took the stage to ensure fans that Gears of War 2 would be "bigger, better, and far more badass than the first game in every way." New additions to the game include chainsaw duels, an improved cover system, a slew of new weapons, drop-in co-op play, and improved physics that were made possible in the latest version of the Unreal Engine 3. Although only an Xbox 360 release has been announced, gamers can bank on an eventual release for PC.
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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.