The Most Anticipated Games of Winter 2007: World in Conflict, Medal Of Honor: Airborne, Unreal Tournament 3, Crysis, and Assassin's Creed.
The summer didn't exactly bring all of the DirectX 10 sizzle we hoped for, but this winter is looking like things will really begin to heat up for gamers. Benchmark Reviews walks though five of the most anticipated video games ending 2007. We have: World in Conflict, Medal Of Honor: Airborne, Unreal Tournament 3, Crysis, and Assassin's Creed. Feast your eyes on some of the most exciting games to hit the widescreen!
Starting off the rotation is World in Conflict, an excellent Real Time Strategy with both multiplayer online action, and a single player story. Developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Sierra, this action-packed thriller has already undergone both a private closed beta, and recently finished its open public beta. Expect this game in October 2007, but the pre-order has already started.
Medal of Honor has been a long standing name in the First-Person Shooter genre for well over five years now. Medal of Honor: Airborne is yet another great improvement beyond the past successful releases, and should be just as entertaining. Available on PC and nearly every console known to man, Electronic Arts releases this game on September 4, 2007.
Sometime in November 2007 the latest edition to the Midway/Epic Games family shall grace store shelves: Unreal Tournament 3. Based off of the previous two stories, this third edition of the popular first-person shooter offers an all-new engine and some new faces to compliment some familiar ones. Strong single player missions are shadowed by an awesome online multiplayer environment making previous versions ancient history.
What do you get when the creative minds at EA Games join ranks with Crytek? You get Crysis, one of the most anticipated first-person shooters of the year. Extremely realistic model engines and jungle warfare will keep you checking your back every few minutes... but you have until November 16, 2007 to rest up and practice.
Action and adventure have never had it so good. Thanks to some very detailed graphics in the upcoming Assassin's Creed, anyone with a bloodlust will not want to wait until November of 2007 for this EA Games/Ubisoft release to go public. The premise is rather simple; it's the execution that will kill you!
Read on to learn the details surrounding each of these games, and get yourself ready for some very interesting sneak-peeks into the most anticipated games of Winter 2007.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit the Benchmark Reviews Forum to discuss this article.
World in Conflict
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Published By: Sierra
Developed By: Massive Entertainment
Genre: Real Time Strategy
Release Date: October 2007
Official Website: https://www.worldinconflict.com/index.html
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Real Time Strategy gamers out there (myself included) have all the reasons in the world to be cheerful lately. A wide range of RTS titles hit the market in the past year, each with its own uniqueness and innovative features. With huge names like Company of Heroes, Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars and Supreme Commander, you probably feel you saw everything. Well, those were my exact thoughts when I first heard of World in Conflict, which will be released this October. But as I went deeper into the details (and participated in the open Beta), I understood that World in Conflict brings something truly different to the RTS genre.
World in Conflict's developers decided they want the storyline to be something that was never used before in a video game and yet, something relevant and somehow authentic. What's better than taking the cold war and twist it's ending a little bit, escalating the dispute between the United Nations and the Soviet Union? The alternate cold war plot starts with the Soviet Union threatening to invade Western Europe unless the United Nations immediately helps restore its shaky economy. When the UN ignores that request, the red army executes the threat and actually assaults destinations in Europe. NATO tries to respond but encounters yet another huge assault, this time on American soil - in Seattle. You take the role of an American or Russian field commander, utilizing the best weaponry available at the time in order to break your way through enemies' forces.
The revolutionary thing about World in Conflict is definitely the game play it offers. When you come to play any RTS nowadays, you look forward to the action scenes, the adrenaline, the tactics, the explosions, the assaults, the tanks and the thrilling moments that these situations create. But then, you find yourself popping out workers / peasants / harvesters / engineers one by one, stabilizing your economy, build your base, train units and only then, you get into battle. Each game, you'll need to start it all over again. This is where WiC changes the rules, big time. WiC does not force you to manage your resources or build your base from scratch. Instead, it puts you right into battle with non-stop action and no delays. Each player has a certain amount of points as he starts the game. Those points are used to call in reinforcements. Each unit in the game will cost you a certain amount of points, which makes you think and plan ahead in order to create a powerful, yet diverse army. Once a unit is destroyed, the points you spent on it will slowly regenerate and you will be able to call such unit (or any other) with the accumulated points you have.
The main objective is to capture as many key areas as you can across the map. Annihilating all enemy forces will not guarantee your win, as your enemy is able to drop reinforcements and have all his units back in no time. Each key area is represented by at least 2 connected control perimeters. You will have to place your units within all the perimeters in order to control a key area. Lose control of one of the connecting perimeters and you will lose control of the whole area. When the clock runs out, the team controlling the most areas is announced as the winner. Once you control more key areas, your drop zone can be moved into those areas, which will save you the time and headache of crossing the whole map with your units (especially infantry) in order to get to the front line and engage your enemy.
You will experience fast paced (10-20 minutes) multiplayer games with up to 16 players. Just join a server, choose your side (USA or Russia), and start bombing your enemy! Once inside, you will select one of four optional battlefield roles: Air, Armor, Infantry or Support.
- Air will let you command transports, scouts or combat helicopters. Very powerful against armor, but their weak point is the anti-air units. They also can't capture perimeters and hence, can't control key areas by themselves.
- Armor will enable you to call in the heavy tanks and armored vehicles. Very powerful against artillery yet vulnerable to dedicated infantry and air assaults.
- Infantry commander has infantry, snipers, anti tank and anti air squads at his disposal. Those squads are vulnerable when out in the open but are dreadful when garrisoned in buildings or hidden in forests.
- The fourth role is Support, which lets you use artillery strikes and call in heavy anti air units. Support units are very powerful and long ranged but are very weak to anything that approaches them face to face.
Besides all that, WiC also features Tactical Aids (TAs). It is a type of support feature you can use to aid your troops and allies during battle. Tactical Aids include artillery barrages, air strikes, tank busters and, of course, nuke! TAs are based on a point system, where every TA costs a certain amount of points according to how powerful it is. You gain TA points when you do something beneficial for your team. Such actions might be taking control of a perimeter, kill enemy units, repair units and so forth. Once you gain enough points, you can deploy a certain TA and place it where you want on the battlefield. Executing a successful TA action will reward you with more TA points.
The world is definitely the most detailed world I ever came across on a game from this genre, and this is a huge achievement when you have Company of Heroes as a competitor. Explosions look amazingly realistic, forests go up in flames, buildings crumble to dust after being bombed with artillery strikes, units are highly detailed and impressive and so on. In addition, everything is destructible, which is just a great feature. You start the battle in a peaceful town, with a river crossing it, colorful houses inside and birds singing. When you're finished, the land is scorched, housed are no more, sky is darker and the birds, well, if I was a bird, I'd get out of there ASAP!
I feel, based on the open beta experience, that WiC might be a huge success. Massive Entertainment has an extremely ambitious and revolutionary title in development that is capable of leaving all other RTS titles behind. If the developers will manage to keep it stable and implement all their interesting ideas, I can promise you a very warm and exciting winter!
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit the Benchmark Reviews Forum to discuss this article.
Medal Of Honor: Airborne
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By: Electronic Arts
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Release Date: September 4 2007
Platforms: PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, XBOX, X360, GC, DS, GBA, MOBILE
Official Website: https://www.ea.com/moh/airborne/index.jsp
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WWII is a war that the game industry seems to like very much. Countless games use this war for their storyline trying to create an authentic atmosphere. Just when you feel you had enough of WWII titles, comes the new Medal of Honor title and makes you think again. Since the first Medal of Honor was released, thousands of bullets were shot on our screen, countless tanks have been destroyed and we upgraded our video cards at least twice...
What I'm trying to say is, our expectations raised enormously and Airborne's developers promise to live up to these expectations. The developers at EA promise us a "cinematic story-driven game with the freedom of nonlinear missions in an FPS environment". Electronic Arts realized that gamers nowadays do not like linear games. What we do like, however, is being told what needs to be done and leave the how for us to decide. We will choose our own way and accomplish the objectives as we see fit. This means nothing is recycled from previous games in the series. It's a whole new playground. Now you're asking yourself "hmmm, how is that going to happen..." The answer is: parachuting!
Airborne lets you control Boyd Travers, a paratrooper in the U.S 82nd Airborne Division. During the game, you will find yourself executing rescue operations, utilizing various weapons and leading invasions in your way to free Europe. The developers will let us experience some famous moments from WWII such as Operation Overlord and Operation Market Garden, which was the single largest airborne invasion in history. Placing the player in the middle of the action that really did happen supplies a real authentic atmosphere and brings something special into the game world.
The game play of Airborne brings a lot of new things to MOH players. You will start every mission on a plane. Don't get too comfortable since you'll immediately jump out of it towards enemy territory. The position of your landing is not set and you may change it during your fall. This means you can steer your parachute almost anywhere you want to and land wherever you choose. Imagine you're falling rapidly towards the ground. Planes bomb enemy's structures and dodging anti aircrafts missiles while you pray those whistling bullets and ricochets will not hit you or your parachute...
If you're lucky, you will land in a deserted field or a territory occupied by allied forces. In worse cases, you'll land right into a group of German soldiers, who will kill you instantly. This creates a really dynamic and unpredictable mission each time you play it. In previous games of this franchise, the game knew exactly where you're coming from and therefore, could plan the battle to be thrilling with pre-determined scenarios. EA's developers promise that although nothing is known this time, we can still expect some exciting and breath-taking scenes while playing the game our way. This must mean amazing AI...
EA's people will try to keep the game as realistic as possible, in all aspects. That includes weaponry as well. All of the weapons and weapon upgrades in MOHA were thoroughly researched to provide a truly authentic experience. Upgrades include improved firing rates, better weapon stability and accuracy, faster reloads and more-effective close combat. Weapon upgrades that are unlocked are available permanently throughout the game.
This is the first title in the series that will be developed to the PS3 and Xbox360 as well as PS2, Xbox and the PC. I hope EA will be able to maintain high level of performance for all those platforms at once. From the videos and images I have already seen, the graphics outclass all the previous games of this series. MOHA features impressive, accurate and highly detailed models. Your comrades look more realistic than ever. You can actually see the fear in their eyes when they warn you about enemy troops on 10 o'clock. To keep the authentic experience, even briefings will be given by actual characters and not written on some page while loading the level.
Medal of Honor Airborne is truly shaping up to be one of the greatest games in the genre, surely something to look forward to.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit the Benchmark Reviews Forum to discuss this article.
Unreal Tournament 3
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By: Midway, Epic Games
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Release Date: November 2007
Web Site: https://www.unrealtournament3.com/
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This title is the fourth in the series of Unreal Tournament games. Why is it called Unreal Tournament 3? The new name reflects the new Unreal 3.0 engine it uses which makes it look absolutely stunning. The Unreal 3.0 engine allows displaying breathtaking and, well, unreal graphics using millions of polygons. Remember Gears of War? They say it looks ugly in comparison to the graphics in UT3, although GoW used the same engine. That means Epic Games further developed the engine and achieved much better results! Also, it uses new physics engine powered by Ageia's Novodex technology, advanced visual effects and other technologies that no one understands what they really mean.
It seems that more than 3 years of work since the last title (UT2004) brings us one of the prettiest games in the current year. With that said, there is much more to UT3 than only graphics! Epic's developers insist that although the graphics are just dazzling, the real difference in UT3 is the game play. They claim that the difference between UT2004 and UT3 is huge and say they believe that UT2004 was not utilized to the fullest.
The game will feature new game modes as well as keep some of the old and loved modes from previous games. The Assault and Onslaught modes we know from UT2004 are no more. Instead, we will get a new mode that takes the best out of these two and creates a special, tactical new mode called Unreal Warfare (formerly known as conquest). The style of game play is similar to Onslaught, but it will feature side missions just like in Assault. These side missions will help your team get better weapons and vehicles, giving you an advantage over the competitors. This mode will feature new and fascinating vehicles and accommodate a large number of players at once on huge and diverse maps. Other classical modes are Deathmatch (including all its versions) and Capture the Flag(as well as CTF with vehicles).
Another thing that is worth mentioning is the single player mode. None of the UT games ever included a real single player mode with a background story to support it. UT3 will change that and include an interesting single player plot for us to follow. The game will also push even harder on one of the series' strongest features, the single player with its "bot characters". Epic promises the artificial intelligence used for its bot characters is going to get even better than before, which is really hard, I must say. Bot characters were amazing before, can't wait to see how they perform now. They will understand many commands and tactics, and execute them in a very precise way. They will be chatty as before but with more context. For example, when they will spot enemy soldiers coming your way, they will indicate that 2 enemy units were sighted over the next hill and won't use just global statements as before. If you'll want your bots to destroy an enemy inside a cave you'll just have to say: "destroy the enemy in cave" and the order will be executed... amazing!
In spite of the very well implemented single player of UT3, it is still a multiplayer based game, and a great one. Looks like UT3 will outclass UT2004 in every possible aspect! It's going to be hot!
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit the Benchmark Reviews Forum to discuss this article.
Crysis
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By: EA Games, Crytek
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Release Date: November 16 2007
Web Site: https://www.electronicarts.co.uk/games/8456
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Crysis is definitely one of the most anticipated games of 2007, if not THE most anticipated one. Everybody's talking about how great it will look with Crytek's new engine cryENGINE2 (the successor to Far Cry's engine). If you take a small peek on a game play movie or some screenshots, you'll instantly see what I am talking about, it really looks spectacular. The game's graphics are just absolutely stunning. I found it hard to take my eyes off the screenshots while I write these lines - I mean it.... Having said that, I strongly believe it will be much more than a pretty face.
Crysis is set in the near future - 2019. A group of US archaeologists is sent to the South China Sea in order to investigate a crash site of a mysterious ancient asteroid. Korean teams are there as well for the same purpose and the local government decides to take the US team captive. It is then decided by the US government to send off-the-record help and that's where you come into the picture. You are a united stated Delta Force soldier called, Jake Dunn. The game is planned to be set across three acts and each will display a completely different uniquely designed environment.
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Act 1: You'll land onto the beautiful exotic island, filled with vegetation, wild animals, rivers and jungles. You will engage the North Korean soldiers and battle your way in the jungle in order to get to the meteor's crash site. There, you'll investigate the area and try to find clues about the location of the archaeologists.
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Act 2: The meteor starts to show signs of some strange activity, opens up and flash freezes the entire island. It seems that a special and powerful alien's forces invaded the peaceful place and they are planning to stick around. The alien forces overwhelm the Koreans and the situation becomes dangerous to the whole world. Chinese, North Koreans and US forces are forming an allied attack against the creatures.
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Act 3 will take place on the alien aircraft. You will have to fight the alien forces at their home and Zero-G will probably make it much harder and interesting. The alien's animations are said to be the best ever seen in computer gaming, so I guess we can expect some thrilling moments onboard. Crytek has stated the aliens themselves will not be revealed until the end of the game, giving them a certain degree of suspense.
Game play seems interesting, dynamic and innovative. Your enemies will constantly change (Soldiers, animals, aliens), which will force you to adapt in order to survive. Each enemy will have different abilities and you will have to use various tactics to overcome each type of enemy. You will even have to face environmental obstacles and difficulties such as zero-gravity environments. A special high-tech nano-suit will allow you to enhance your abilities in real time on the battlefield. Using this suit will enable you to enhance your speed, strength, armor and cloaking abilities to approach situations in creative tactical ways. In addition, all your weapons are customizable.
You will have a huge arsenal of different weapons to match your game play style. Some weapons are common while others are unique to the game and are considered experimental weapons (TAC launcher) or alien technology based weapons. The people in Crytek invested a lot in the AI of the game, making enemies and wild animals realistic and unpredictable. Crytek encourage the player to be creative and plan his attacks carefully in order to get rid of his enemies efficiently. As with Far Cry, Crysis will be an open-ended game with many ways to meet objectives. Choose your path to complete a task or create one by destroying obstacles - everything is possible. You can also use any means of transportation you can find around, including vehicles, boats and so on.
Once you saved the world from this dangerous threat, you can always go online for a good multiplayer match. Crysis will support up to 32 players with real-time armor and weapons customization, just like the single player offered. You can choose between several online modes.
Instant Action is the classical deathmatch we all know and Team Action is exactly like Team DeathMatch from other FPS games. The interesting mode here is the Power Struggle, which is a capture the flag type of game with some innovations brought from Crysis. It is a strategic objective-based experience that combines economy and vehicle warfare, alien technology and ranking.
Crysis sure looks like a wonderful game that will take the FPS genre a few steps forward. Not only visually, but also in the game play aspect. All we need to do now is - wait...
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit the Benchmark Reviews Forum to discuss this article.
Assassin's Creed
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By: EA Games, Ubisoft
Genre: Action Adventure
Release Date: November 2007
Web Site: https://assassinscreed.us.ubi.com/
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Assassin's creed is one of the games I personally wait for in particular. It is the unofficial successor of the amazing Prince of Persia series blended with some Hitman elements, and that is more than enough to make it something very interesting for us to check out. Ubisoft is known for its innovative and fascinating action adventure games and I am positive this one will be no exception.
Assassin's Creed is set in 1191 AD, during the Third Crusade. The Holy Land is being desecrated and you are Altaïr, a mysterious assassin, trying to stop the madness and bring back the balance to the area. In order to do that, you will assassinate men said to be exacerbating and exploiting the hostilities created by the Third Crusade. Altaïr failed the previous task assigned to him by the Assassin Order and was demoted to the lowest rank available (Uninitiated). Stabilizing the situation in the holy land will help him redeem himself. As you go deeper into the story, you will reveal the true goals of your targets, profit is not what they are after...
The creators of the game indicate that a huge effort was put in to make Assassin's Creed as historically accurate as possible. The locations in the game are distinctive models of the cities and Altaïr's targets are also historic leaders who died or disappeared during the Third Crusade.
The game play, according to what Ubisoft promises, looks truly amazing. In the start of every assassination, you will have to examine the environment and plan your moves accurately and thoughtfully. You will have to find a way to sneak up and assassinate your target as well as plan a route for your safe escape. Sneaking here is not what we are used to, meaning you won't use shadows to hide and advance. Instead, Ubisoft presents a new approach they call - Social Stealth. You will have to find your way to disappear into a crowd and sneak undetected for the kill. Your behavior while walking in a crowd will affect the way people will react. If you push someone, they will push back, drawing nearby guards' attention. Climbing a wall will draw people around, looking at your maneuvers and revealing your presence. This is a very different and refreshing approach to sneaking in games, don't you think?
Besides blending in crowds, the developers promise that everything in the game world can be used and will be interactive. I remember playing other action adventure games (I love the genre) and wondering to myself, "Why can't I climb that pipe" or "Why can't I move that garbage can". When you play Assassin's Creed, those questions will not bother you whatsoever. Altaïr will be able to grab, climb and interact with anything in his surroundings, which means exploring an area will be a whole new experience.
Controlling Altaïr is also innovative and interesting. Unlike traditional control scheme, controlling our assassin is intuitive. Each body part will have a corresponding button and pressing one of these will execute an action according to the current situation and position of your character. For instance, when approaching a wall, pressing the "legs" button will make Altaïr climb it while pressing "arms without weapons" button will make him take cover and hide behind it.
What is an assassin without some deadly weapons hidden beneath his robe? Altaïr carries common weapons such as a knife, a sword and a small crossbow, but the really cool thing is his deadly dagger. The dagger is concealed under his arm and works with a mechanism that makes it stand out when he closes his fingers, creating a fist with a sharp and deadly blade at its end. All that's left is to stab the enemy quietly and leave the place unnoticed. Weapons will also be customizable and you will probably be able to upgrade them.
Assassin's Creed looks like the kind of game I, for one, won't be able to stop playing until I exhaust every single aspect of it. It brings a new approach and I feel it is going to be a blast. Look for it on the shelves on November...
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit the Benchmark Reviews Forum to discuss this article.
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