With a name like Killzone, you’d be forgiven for dismissing this first-person shooter as yet another hypermasculine, shades-of-gray gorefest. Don’t get me wrong — there’ll be plenty of blood sprays and vulgar übermenschen, but Guerrilla Games’ next stab at the good-guys-versus-space-Nazis formula promises to deliver much more.
The run-and-gun mantra of console shooters past has given way to a focus on tactical supremacy, with a snappy cover system giving you time to plan your next move. The slower pace should let us really appreciate the eerily hypnotic reloading animations and the stunningly realized crackle and pop of machine-gun fire. Right up until those brutally clever baddies either flank your position, or blow chunks out of whatever it is you were hiding behind. Good looks and brains to match. Where do I enlist?
Let’s review: The original StarCraft, released in March of 1998, was one of the deepest, best balanced, most addictive real-time strategy games ever made. It had three richly varied races, an actual story and near-limitless potential for strategic variations. Now, Blizzard Entertainment — a developer that has never released a bad game — is finishing up a sequel with gorgeous graphics, new unit types and abilities, and improved online matchmaking.
What’s not to anticipate about StarCraft II? I mean, except for the fact that I’ll be losing my job and my friends and getting scurvy because the game will end up devouring every waking moment of my life. Some people are griping because Blizzard has already announced plans to hold back some content for expansion packs. But come on, do you really think you won’t get your money’s worth? People are still playing the original, 11 years later.
For more than two decades, the tabletop game Warhammer 40,000 has captivated countless fans with relentless miniature figurine battles waged between hyper-religious superhuman space fascists, space Orks, space Elves and savage, genetically engineered insect-things that are also from space.
The transition to the real-time strategy genre on the PC went fairly well, but the onset of sequel-itis has left the original Dawn of War looking a bit tired. Fortunately, Relic Entertainment is bringing players back to the basics with Dawn of War II — namely, control of small, elite squads embroiled in close-quarters combat, with a number of traditional RPG mechanics rolled in. Dawn of War’s gleefully excessive brutality and visual flair have been revamped, adding tantalizing levels of detail to the act of vigorously throttling enemy units before hurling them through the air like a large, wet sack. There will also be bits of traditional base-building and resource gathering on the multiplayer side of things, but confess: We’re all really in it for jetpacks and chainsaw-swords.
We don’t know what it’ll look like, how it’ll play or even what it’ll be called. But Harmonix’s collaboration with The Beatles is the odds-on favorite to be the biggest thing to happen to videogames, and maybe even music, in 2009.
The creators of Guitar Hero and Rock Band have turned millions of gamers into faux rockers with plastic instruments, letting non-musicians experience the joy of jamming. And what better way to put on a show in your living room than with the legendary music of the greatest band of all time? Harmonix is forgoing Rock Band 3 this year to concentrate its efforts on re-creating the Fab Four’s music in interactive form. Even if this were just downloadable content for Rock Band, it would be one of the best things to happen this year. As a standalone game, it’ll be unstoppable. (As long as Harmonix includes an option to sing the entire B side of Abbey Road without stopping, I’ll be happy.)
Until we zombie purists convince George Romero to open a game development studio, Capcom Entertainment is our best substitute in the pixelized fight against the undead. Metal Gear Solid 4-level visual polish, a nicely modified strain of the Resident Evil 4 control scheme, online co-operative multiplayer and the woefully underrepresented setting of the African Savannah all indicate that Resident Evil 5 almost has to be something special.
Honestly, I’m just giddy for a chance to pop off heavy munitions into the brains of some undead foes. At the end of a long workday, nothing is more satisfying than the wholesale slaughter of shambling hordes
