PC Preview - 'Field Ops'
by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2006
Genre: First-Person Shooter/Real-Time Strategy
Publisher: Freeze Interactive
Developer: Digital Reality
Release Date: November 2006
Field Ops is one of the first titles to successfully merge both FPS and RTS into a single coherent genre. This is not the first game to attempt this – Battlezone and Battlezone 2 in the late '90s had similar approaches – but this is one of the best attempts at combining the best aspects of both genres without compromising either. This is neither an FPS with RTS elements nor a RTS with a splash of FPS – it works equally well as
If there were no World War II, how would the world be today? The team at Insomniac decided to ponder this scenario in their upcoming launch title for the PlayStation 3, Resistance: Fall of Man. Picture Great Britain in 1951, and in your mind's eye, you'll probably see nice cafes, tea parties and quiet civility. The truth is that the world is just not a happy place, even in this alternate history, where WWII never occurred. An alien force has attacked the planet; Asia and most)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
Hey, remember all the fun you had playing the X-Men Legends games? Activision, which employs few if any fools, does, and they wish to hook you up again. This time, they’re expanding that style of gameplay to the greater Marvel Universe, and to pretty much every console you can think of.
)
One of the most anticipated titles at E3 was Bioware's next-gen action RPG, Mass Effect, which is coming exclusively to the Xbox 360 in 2007. Mass Effect is all about size and scope, and the demo level we saw, "The Citadel," was of an expansive futuristic city that featured a massive docking bay for large spacecrafts. There was a rich use of color throughout the level and some incredibly impressive lighting effects. The lighting really stood out as looking "next-gen" and quite realistic, complete with the blending of)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
The surprise for me at last year's E3 was the original design of Tabula Rasa got thrown out with the bath water. It rather needed it, as it was suffering from too many cooks in the kitchen. It tried to be too original, had an art design that seemed influenced by too many mushrooms, and just didn't look fun. Last year, we learned that they'd decided to make the game more of a sci-fi shooter.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
Conan: Hyborian Adventures is an upcoming MMORPG from Funcom, the makers of Anarchy Online. At E3, I was able to take a look at the latest build of Conan and get a detailed overview of the game's character creation and combat systems.
Normally, the most anemic demos at E3 are the demos of the games too early in their production cycle to be playable. Often, they're not demos so much as trailers, and while seeing footage of a long-anticipated game like Final Fantasy XIII, Halo 3, or Smash Brothers Brawl can be elating, the high eventually ends, and you realize that you don't really know much more about the game than you did before. One of the most depressing E3 experiences possible is to lay hands on a long-awaited title