The game is set in some African country. A coup d’etat and the country gets a dictator as its governor. And it slowly but steadily plunges into chaos. White farmers have been drawn from their land and now groups and fight with looter bands for the control over certain territories. The U.N.O. is involved and tries to give humanitarian help. As for the ex-rulers of the country they try to sit back. What makes the new game differ is that it’s up to the player to decide whose part to support. There are several starting points in

Genre: Action/RPG
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Release Date: Fall 2005

If nothing else, Castlevania: Curse of Darkness answers one question I’ve had for a while about the Castlevania series. Simply put, it’s this: when you leave and come back into a room in a Castlevania game, where does the fresh wave of monsters come from? Is there a hidden wing of Dracula’s castle that’s entirely dedicated to the care, feeding, construction, and breeding of new monsters to replace the ones you’ve been hacking to bits?

Apparently, there is, and it’s staffed by people like Hector. As a Devil Forgemaster, Hector

Gears of War

Genre: Action
Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Epic Games
Release Date: Q1 2006

Going into E3 2005, the game I was most excited about seeing was by far the very impressive Unreal Engine 3-based Gears of War for the Xbox 360, and it sure didn't disappoint.

The story behind Gears of War paints a pretty bleak picture for humanity, thanks to some really nasty creatures that will send chills up and down your spine the first time you see them, and many times after that as well. The setting is the planet Sera, which is very much like Earth, just slightly more

Twenty-five years in the future. Governments have outsourced military operations to private multinational corporations. As Jake Carpenter, a newly enlisted soldier in the Mantel army, you are seeking fulfillment and thrills by fighting for a good cause.

Thanks to their high-tech arsenal of vehicles, deadly weaponry, and performance enhancing bio-medical support, the Mantel Corporation’s ruthlessly efficient soldiers are the most feared by terrorists, dictators, and the corporation’s political enemies.

Your conflict begins in a war-torn country in South America, where you have been sent to fight a vicious rebel faction, The Promise Hand. At first glance, all is well, but

Genre: Action
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Seven Studios
Release Date: Q3 2006

In case you missed the memo the first time around, here’s another copy of it:

Pirates Are Cool.

Heck, just go ask Guilty Gear X’s Johnny, or the entire cast of Skies of Arcadia. Pirates are always fun to play as in video games. There’s just something about being able to break all the rules, play dirty, and fight as underhanded as one possibly can whenever one feels like it that translates wonderfully to the genre.

Few pirates are better at all of this than one Jack Sparrow, and he’s going to

Get the Age of Pirates: Captain Blood trailer off WP (12mb)

Age of Pirates: Captain Blood gives the gamer an extraordinary chance to live the life of the highly eccentric pirate created by Rafael Sabatini. The game is based on the story from his famed novel, "Captain Blood: His Odyssey".

In this game, the player assumes the role of brave and noble pirate captain, Peter Blood, and follows his intriguing and amazing adventures in 1685 on the Spanish Main. An English surgeon was framed and condemned to penal servitude on Barbados. After surviving some hard times, he got the chance to

Genre: 3D Action/Adventure
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Treyarch
Release Date: TBA

Ultimate Spider-Man, at its core, is a re-telling of the classic Spider-Man story with a slightly younger cast and a contemporary spin.

You all know the gist of it by now: a nerdy kid gets bitten by a radioactive spider, gets super powers, and uses both them and his mind to solve crimes while at the same time possessing the ability to upstage just about everyone on Def Comedy Jam without even trying. The Ultimate line of comic books puts the Spidey stories in the here and now, with today’s

Get the Tanita Plasticine Dream trailer off WP (20mb)

A plasticine game in a colorful setting allows you to see a plasticine dream of plasticine girl. In it, she meets many new but strange friends and tries to return to her home during a trip across plasticine islands and seas.

In that world, mechanical and live beings may be combined into fantastic things such as a palm-telescope that brings you to the very top and shows all future locations; a coco crasher that can crash any object... almost; a juice machine that is encapsulated into a door lock, and a funny volcano

Rat Hunter is a first-person action shooter with a mystery story in a hi-tech world. The player fills the shoes of a reporter who investigates a string of mysterious events on a remote planet. In order to obtain hot evidence, he gets a job of a rat hunter at one of the colonies. What starts as a simple investigation will soon turn his life inside out. You’ll dive into the haunting memories of the past and discover jaw-dropping truth about main character's real identity…

Rat Hunter features are traditional, by-the-book gameplay, which does not wander into the realm of tactical shooters.