f13.net

Don't know if this was posted before (http://adrianwerner.wordpress.com/games-of-2008/), but this is a very extensive list of all the PC games coming out this year. Some of them I had no idea about and look pretty decent.

Of course with the announcement of Diablo III, what the fuck do you people care anyway? :awesome_for_real:

Goddamn, I forgot about Heroes of Might and Magic Kingdoms. Do want.

Also, lol, most of that will never make it out in 08. Or it will come out with a whisper.

I've never found Blizzard games as fascinating as everyone else seems to, so setting aside titles already released:

Empire: Total War
Spore
Colonization
Theater of War II
Jutland
Mount & Blade (final)
City of Abandoned Ships
STALKER Clear Sky
Jumpgate Evolution
Infinity: The Quest for Earth
Silent Hunter 4: U-Boat Missions
Battlestar Galactica: Beyond the Red Line
The Lord of the Rings: Conquest
Mirror’s Edge
Mercenaries 2
Precursors
White Gold: War in Paradise
Battlestations: Pacific

Possibly others, but I don't know enough about some interesting-looking titles.

Oh, and Dragon Age? Not in 2008.

Like 50% of that list. I'd be shocked if we got a full featured dragon age in 09. :grin:

C'mon, that list had Duke Nukem Forever on it.

Funny thing if you just look at the screens at some points it reminds me of a 2001 era in technology. Which makes me somewhat happy seeing more focus is being put on the gameplay and less on the pretties nowadays. And Blizzard are the kings on this part.

Final version of Infinity: The Quest for Earth?  :oh_i_see:

Edit: The final version of Armada Online is coming out? Cool.

Spore, Lich King, Fallout 3.

Many, if not all, of those will probably be pushed to 09 but I can always hope. If that happens the rest of this year is looking pretty god damn bleak for me.

After the D3 annoucement, I do have a hard time working up much enthusiasm for anything else.

Unfortunately, it's Blizzard and that means D3 is a looooooong ways off. Once I wrestle my inner Diablo fanboy back under control I find I'm looking forward to Sacred 2 and Fallout 3. WotLK kinda goes without saying, but...how about that D3?

Empire: Total War is so going to own me when I get it. Medieval 2 was just pure joy, a SYW/Napoleonic version with full naval? My poopsock awaits.

I'm one of the few who have no interest in Diablo. Was pretty boring imo, I think Divine Divinity took the gameplay and made it into a good game with some substance. Anyway, that link has been posted here before, when it was a forum post. Still a nice reference to have.

Spore, of course
Disciples 3, I liked 2 a lot when the competition was HoMaM4
Jagged Alliance 3 - oh hell yes
Colonization, though I expect it to underwhelm without Reynolds
Anno 1701 exp pack...need to get the original once I have time for that kind of game
Dragon Age if it's not mmo :)
Dropship looks interesting
STALKER
Enemy in Sight, Mafia was awesome
Far Cry 2 is looking amazing
Black Sky
Mafia 2
Fallout 3, I also expect this to underwhelm
Sacred 2 (another Diablo done right)
Blood Bowl
Operation Flashpoint 2
Arma 2

Of course, I don't have the time nor money for all that, so probably only getting a few of them. Spore, Colonization, Dragon Age, Mafia 2 are probably the definites.

I'm looking forward to Jumpgate.

I still need to try out Sins of a Solar Empire.


Hyuck hyuck. Typo lolz.


Man what? Did I space this one or something?

Quite a few spaceship MMO's on the drawing board it seems.


*Snerk*

Vampyre story looks tempting. I do love me some adventure games. If Love actually comes out I'll play that just to bask in the art for awhile. I'll probably take a crack at Subversion and Mulitwinia; the Introversion games are generally interesting, if a but crufty. Of course, if NS 2 actually comes out this year, then scratch everything above, I'll be busy eating marines.

Any idiot can model and animate a spaceship. I would imagine it cuts down on the art staff significantly.

As long as it's a good spaceship game, I couldn't care less.

HAH!

Good games with spaceship pew pew released this millenium :

Starlancer
EVE

That is all.

I'm half inclined to give you Freelancer, but not really. So, for all these supposed future games, what is more likely?

Spaceships have become some kind of curse. My personal theory is that Chris Roberts struck a pact with the fucking devil, and bought ability to make the last decent pew pew game in return for his soul. Turns out Iceland is outside the devil's jurisdiction. Who knew?

Bitter? Me? Never.

Thats a rather blanket statement. It depends on your design, and system design (Requirements like: animations, mounts, particles, texturing/surfacing, research ETC..) they can be just as complicated as human figures.

Well, duh. It's a "dead" genere lately. Which sucks because my CH Flightstick Pro is gathering dust since I lost* my X-Wing collection CDs.

*Loaned to someone who never returned them. I can only assume I had a brain hemmorage that day deciding to loan my babies out.

It's true, technically a spaceship could be very complicated, but based on those screenshots I'm going to say those weren't terribly challenging spaceships. Your average spaceship is a helluva lot easier to rig than your average biped, IMO. Rigid bodies have always be a lot easier for me to model than squishies though, so I may be biased.

Yeah, but scratch it from that list.  The last I checked, I think the release was Spring \ Summer 2009.  As excited as I am about SC2 and D3, a freshly overhauled Total War is why I get up in the morning.

Alright, here's my list:

Strategy:
Supreme Ruler 2020: It gives me a Supremacy vibe. This was a boardgame in the 80s where you sometimes had to set aside an entire weekend to play it right. It often turned into a Mexican standoff with the first one who blinked getting nuked.
Spore: I'm trying to fight the hype but damn...Sims for men.
HoMM: Kingdoms 50/50. It's free but it's a browser-based MMO.

Adventure:
Vampyre Story: They had me at ex-LucasArts. Say what you want, their adventure games were the shit.
Dreamfall Chapters: I'm there. Say what you want about Funcom MMOs, but I  :heart: their adventure games.

RPGs:

Dragon Age: Bioware. Nuff said. The only game company I am absolutely loyal to.
No Time for Dragons: Maybe. I have a weakness for old-school Isometric RPGs with parties.
War: Already preordered
NWN2: Storm of Zehir - I'm on the fence. It has lots of JRPGish overland stuff and you can supposedly make a trading empire. Then again, it's Obsidian so I expect the first 2/3rds to rock and the last 1/3rd to undo all the good stuff from the first 2/3rds.
Various others in this category that could rock or be total shit. I'll watch and see.

Action:

Lonewolf: Flight from the Dark: Based purely on IP. I loved those books as a kid and bought the d20 RPG.
Black sky: Possible Sci-fi 4X?
Various space-sims MMO and not: If they're good I'm there.

Multiplatform:

Fallout 3: I fully expect to be disappointed, still, I want my bobble-head and lunchbox bitches! If I can't pimp my wife, somebody in Bethesda will have some explaining to do! I also expect this one to miss its ship date or be very, very buggy. One of the two.
Aliens: Colonial Marines: I love this IP.

I'm excited about more TW games as well, but I will say that Rome was better than M2 for me in the series. I can't put my finger on exactly what killed M2 for me, but I just couldn't play it as long as I did Rome.

Yep. Same here.  Exactly the same, I just can't figure out why I don't dig it as much as Rome.  I should love it, but I find it somewhat annoying.  Part of it may be that I think Rome had better opening scenarios and the whole Papal aspect/Crusades was annoying. 

Downloaded this from Gamersgate over the weekend.

To put it gently, this needs some work. The AI doesn't produce very many units and is either a cakewalk or ultra-aggressive, there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. There's a save-game corruption bug that wipes out saved games. Many of the features talked about in the manual or in the game aren't implemented. Combat is literally a game of herding cats.

All that being said I did put 12 hours in as Ohio and I invaded and subjugated West Virginia as lebensraum for my Buckeye War Machine. The underlying game is fun and sound, it just needs to be patched up. 

Ooo, there's a great new RTS idea. Cat Herder! Or maybe mmo, Cat Herder Online: Catass.

While Michigan lays in wait, ready to strike at just the precise moment of Ohio's weakness...

Wolverines!!!

Actually, we're allies right now. Yeah, that made me puke a little in my mouth too.

(http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s183/ec1016/disgusting.jpg)

At least it looks like you guys are about ready to finally give out some more details (four years after announcing the damn thing  :awesome_for_real:) (http://dragonage.bioware.com/)

I stopped caring about Dragon Age a while ago. NWN2 made me lose most hope in a future of Bioware without Black Isle - though most of that hope was already gone. I hope I'm wrong. Goddamnit I hope I'm wrong.

NWN2 was Obsidian.  Lose hope in Dragon Age 2 if you must, when Bioware lets Obsidian release another buggy, half-finished sequel to one of their franchises.  In fact I'm trying again to play through NWN2 right now, and even patched up it has some pretty unforgivable bugs in a number of areas that would have made it unable for me to progress in the game if I hadn't scoured the Internet for workarounds.

Ok, I didn't like Neverwinter Nights 1 either. The editor drove me batty and it was the feature I wanted the most out of it. I should've been more clear - I have not liked Bioware post the Black-Isle days. The games have felt completely devoid of any heart. And it sucks. Because I really really want to enjoy them. Mass Effect and Jade Empire were just freaking unbearable to me.

Yes, I'm sure you've mentioned all that before.  I had to take the opportunity to say how much I hate Obsidian's half-assed work though.  Of course I only have myself to blame for playing NWN2 (mostly because I hear Mask of the Betrayer is a lot better, and for whatever reason I can't bring myself to just skip past the original campaign).

You do realize that the Obsidian that is releasing unfinished buggy stuff is Black Isle, right?

I'd like to see the complexity back to a BG2 level, but hey. Consoles. ADHD.

It's pretty common knowledge, yes.

Well, there seems to be a lot of pining for Black Isle and hating on Obsidian. It's bizarre.

Yes, of course it's black isle. With all of the soul sucked out of it.

Edit: Oops didn't see this page. Obsidian, yes, is mostly BIS. But there's something missing. It's intangible but it has made all of their games be shit. I can't explain it. But I've liked NOTHING Obsidian has released. And it's just depressing.

What's bizarre is that a previously great studio could all of a sudden forget how to ship a completed game.

Or even a good game. :(

I enjoyed NWN2. I really enjoyed KotoR2, except for the incoherent ending, and everything I've heard puts the blame for that on Lucas, not Obsidian. Most of the stuff needed to make the ending awesome is actually in the game files.

Starcraft 2; Q1 09 maybe? I have no clue how these things work.

On the note of long-gone games houses, bring back Bullfrog :(

I have to turn my party's AI off when zoning into certain areas or the game will crash.  I also had to go into the debug menu at one point and trigger an event that wasn't triggering.  If I hadn't looked around on google to find the workarounds, I wouldn't have been able to play any further than the docks district in Neverwinter.  That kind of bug is pretty much unacceptable this far after release.

That kind of bug is unacceptable AT release.

I haven't installed it yet but as far as I know Mask of the Betrayer is supposed to fix quite a few of NWN2's bugs and make the game actually playable.

http://www.lionhead.com/

Eh, Molyneux can go fuck himself. From syndicate and dungeon keeper to lionhead crap. Listening to one of his interviews is more fun than playing his games.

I bought the game a few months ago and controlling the camera made the game downright awful.  You couldn't get the camera to actually rotate fluidly or smart.  I played for an hour or two and it was just bad.  The camera moved so damn fast that instead of concentrating on the game you were fighting with the controls.

Syndicate one was one of the best games ever.

Egosoft plans to release X3 Reunion: Terran conflict in September. Its a standalone game and will be the last of the X : Beyond the Frontier games.

That and Jutland are the only games I am in anyway looking forward to, and that only because I am a World War 1 naval history buff.

I so wish I had time to get over the X learning curve. I bought one when I got my new pc last year and it's a pita. I haven't had time to sit and just learn the game controls and systems in the last six months. Looks so damn cool, though.

Yeah, I bought X3 and haven't installed it since the first time I tried to play it. The controls are insanely complex,  but the whole system sounds so damn awesome.

It's not the same :(

Bullfrog made games that were actually fun to play.

Its pretty good. It probably looks slightly better than it actually is, but its damn close. As for the learning curve I just learned how to do one thing at a time. Turn check. Strafe, check. Swap weapons, check. Set up a system trader, check. Its probably a lot less complex than it looks, and you dont have to know everything.

I have a couple of x3 vids up on youtube if you want to have a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVh6g6p3nKc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FbDX4kRbks

[/shameless self plug]

Makes me want to install it again and try to learn to play.

Also, someone in another thread made a comment about space flight feeling slow and this really gave that feeling. Nothing around you moves fast, so it's hard to get a sense of speed.

Well you have to remember to upgrade the speed of the ships you buy otherwise they are very slow, but that can be a fair comment. Never bothered me that much however.

I always wanted to play X3 because of the vast trade systems you could establish. Sounded very interesting. Just never got around to putting in the time to learn. Are there still guides to getting started? I remember there being quite a few due to how complex the game can be.

Google "The X3 Handbook V2" to download the X3 fan made handbook, made from threads on the egosoft forums and original articles. Utterly superb and explains nearly everything.

My problem with x3 is the version I bought had Starforce.

Sigh.

I got the AIDS-free version. I also have no idea why they decided to call the villains the Cock. The Cock ravaged an entire planet today! Is there anything we can do to stop the Cock?

Because the people that made it dont speak English as a first language? (Its Kha'ak btw)

Le sigh at the oldest joke about the game...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pi8n6uN091E  :grin:

"Respect... the Kha'ak!"
- Tom Cruise

Yeah, it's an old joke. But it's impossible to ignore the fact they keep saying Cock. You'd think at some point in localization or translation that might get mentioned.

X4: Invading the Pus'A

No one managed to communicate with the Cock.

Yeah, thats a classic :)

I should mention I'm helping out with the X Wiki here

http://www.thexuniverse.com

Also the home of some of the best mods for the game, for example the Xtended Mod (XTM) which was endorsed by Egosoft, New Horizons which is more trade orientated than XTM, and the Battlestar Gallactica mod. There are 3 or 4 other mods there as well.

 :drill: This is quite awesome I'm spreading it around my msn now lol

What am I missing that I feel like the only person who's eagerly anticipating "Left 4 Dead" (aside from the fact that, being Valve, it'll get delayed until next year)?

I want to play Hinterland.

I'm looking forward to it too, but it is going to have to be pretty damn good to tear me away from TF2. They need to combine the two; L4D with 4 pyros.  :drill:

Online only co-op doesn't appeal to me too much. If I'm playing co-op I want my friends in the same room. I do most of my gaming with my buddies now, come over, play some games, order food. What am I going to say "ok, go back home so we can play L4D together"?

Especially L4D, which seems to really emphasize the team play. I don't want to play it with random internet strangers. My fun also depends on my friends buying it, who aren't into PC gaming.

I'd buy it an play with F13 folks but I know how that works.

Oh right, I forgot to mention that BOO YA Dead Space will be on the PC. Wooooooooooooooooooooo.

LAN?  I guess I'm lucky in that I have a roomie who I worked at EB with. Our computers are in the living room, so we just boot up a game and can talk to each other over our shoulders.

I'll probably be on L4D for a long time, so you can always play with me :drill:

Looks cool, but too shootery. I'm so tired of shooter gameplay ruining otherwise good games.

Indeed!  I can't even remember how many hours I spent on Dungeon Keeper 2.

"Your dungeon is drafty...INSTALL CENTRAL HEATING!"

Oi. What about "Mount & Blade (final)".  No luv for them?

I imagine quite a few of us have already been playing Mount and Blade for years. I'm not expecting a radically different product for final.

UT ftw!  Best game I've ever bought. :)

I didn't even know about this game until it came across in a company email. Turns out it's made with Torque.

GameSpy: Hinterland Preview (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/hinterland/897378p1.html)

You should get a copy of it so I can uhhh review it?

What I liked best about Dead Space was when the devs tried to demo the "dynamic dismemberment" thing where you have to use the weird weapons in the game to hack the enemies to pieces in order to really kill them...and it didn't work. At all. The guy just kept shooting the thing over and over again while it kept knocking him down (with the same animations), and then it finally just died because he shot it so much.

Warren Ellis helped with the writing and lore on Dead Space.

We've got no contact with them as far as I am aware--I don't even think anyone at GG was aware they were making the game :) One of the folks on the IA side actually read the interview and forwarded it internally.

That looks like a decent game.