In THQ's Cars Race-O-Rama, players will join Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks in Radiator Springs as they prepare their academy of student racers to compete in the Race-O-Rama Exhibition.
Genre: Role-Playing
Publisher: BioWare
Developer: BioWare
Release Date: October 20, 2009
RPG fans have already experienced Bioware's storytelling expertise in titles such as Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic. When Bioware announced the development of Dragon Age, it helped the prolific RPG developer break out from the shackles of having to work within someone else's IP. Mass Effect's runaway success has already proven that the developer can easily stretch its legs beyond its former work, and with Dragon Age: Origins, it's ready to do the same within a world of dark fantasy.
At E3, a playable
Genre: Racing
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Turn 10
Release: October 29, 2009
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I didn't know what to expect at the Forza Motorsport 3 demo at E3, and not only because I haven't played the previous two iterations, but because we weren't actually told beforehand that the hush-hush appointment would be the Forza 3 demo. After checking out the game and chatting with one of the lead designers, though, Forza 3 certainly looks to be an impressive piece of work.
The developer immediately set forth the very interesting argument that there is no such thing as "arcade" versus "simulation"
Set in the realm of Greek mythology, God of War 3 is a single-player game that allows players to take on the climatic role of the ex-Spartan warrior, Kratos, as he treads through the intimidating heights of Mt. Olympus and the dark depths of Hell once more to seek revenge on those who have betrayed him.
Genre: Adventure
Publisher: Lucastarts
Developer: Lucasarts
Release Date: Q3 2009
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Adventure games are a bit of a niche genre. Compared to many other games, they focus on crafting an interesting and enjoyable story and don't require a tremendous amount of natural skill to play. Some adventure games take themselves incredibly seriously, such as the classic CD-ROM title, Myst, but the titles that are most fondly remembered by gamers are ones that had a sense of humor, such as Grim Fandango and Sam & Max, which are infinitely quotable and fun to replay. The Secret of Monkey Island was
Genre: Adventure
Publisher: City Interactive
Developer: City Interactive
Release: Sept. 2009
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City Interactive is a relatively new publisher, especially in North America. While they have been doing PC games since 2002, this is the first year that they've started on consoles with a few games for the Nintendo platforms. Among the games that they demoed at E3 was a DS iteration of their recently established adventure game series, Chronicles of Mystery. The game showed off just enough to potentially be a fun romp through a genre that has earned its resurrection on the Nintendo platforms.
Chronicles of Mystery: Curse
Naruto Shippuden: Clash of Ninja Revolution 3 is a classic 3D fighting game featuring new and improved gameplay mechanics and multiple gameplay modes, 40 3D environments to choose from, including nine completely new stages, over 30 characters, and for the first time, includes Wi-Fi multiplayer capabilities.
Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Release Date: November 17, 2009
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The first Assassin's Creed left me a bit cold. It was a visually stunning game with silky-smooth controls and lots of interesting ideas, but it also had enough flaws to be solidly average at best and tedious at worst. I was understandably hesitant when I went to see Assassin's Creed 2 during E3. Fortunately, Assassin's Creed 2 appears to have been designed entirely to counter every almost every criticism leveled against the original game. From the moment the demo began, I found that every
BioShock was one of the more interesting games to hit in the past few years. A pseudo-sequel to the cult PC hit System Shock, it combined survival horror and first-person shooter elements in an interesting and exciting way.
Genre: Action Role-Playing
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Release Date: September 15, 2009
It's hard to make a good superhero game but nearly impossible to make a good superhero team game. Characters like Superman, Spider-Man or The Hulk are hard enough to make work when the entire game is focused on them, but trying to put a bunch of heroes into a single game usually leads to iffy results, such as the lackluster Justice League games. The one notable exception to this has been the Activision superhero titles, X-Men: Legends and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. The two games
