Ten to six

10. Warhammer Online (Mythic-EA: Late 2007) The next 12 months are admittedly going to have stores flooded with MMO games but the game we most want to play is Warhammer Online, the long awaited adaptation of Games Workshop’s table top fantasy war game. Climax was going to develop a Warhammer MMO project but the plug was pulled by Games Workshop a few years ago and gave the duty to Dark Age of Camelot developer Mythic Entertainment. Of all the MMO games due to be released in the next year, Warhammer Online promises to bring the mass appeal of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft combined with Games Workshop’s massive land battles. Let’s hope Mythic’s recent purchase by EA will not affect what we hope will be our choice for a true World of Warcraft killer.

9. Bioshock (Irrational Games-2K Games: First Half of 2007) Irrational Games’ created one of the best games of all time with their sci-fi first person action RPG System Shock 2 several years ago. Now they return to this genre with a follow-up (kind of) to that title with BioShock. Set in an underwater community in the 1960’s where an experiment has gone horribly wrong, you get to explore and combat some weird creatures while improving your own abilities through the base’s resources. It helps that the game’s screenshots and gameaplay movies already look outstanding with an art style that resembles a slightly twisted version of 1940’s art deco. Irrational’s track record for games is already solid and we hope that BioShock will be their best game to date.


8. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl (GSC GameWorld-THQ: March 2007) It’s hasn’t taken quite as long as Duke Nukem Forever to finish but we have to admit we have been reading previews and interviews about S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl for several years now. It finally looks like this post-apocalyptic themed first person shooter will finally be released this March from publisher THQ. With fighting radiation created mutant to a non-linear gameplay design to graphics that still look great, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. may be worth all the time it took to get this game out the door.


7. Half-Life 2: Episode 2/Portal/Team Fortress 2 (Valve: Summer 2007) We thought that Valve was just going to release the second chapter in their episodic shooter following Half-Life 2: Episode One. That would have been plenty for us, especially since the footage shown so far looks like the second chapter finally gets out of City 17 and into a more natural environment. But Valve surprised us by saying that Episode 2 would also contain two more games; a first person action-puzzle title called Portal that uses a portal gun to create dimensional holes and the long, long awaited team multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2, now redone in a cartoony cel-shaded art style. You had us at “Episode 2” Valve; these two extra treats just makes us want this game even more.


6. Unreal Tournament 2007: (Epic-Midway: Sometime in 2007) Epic Games is riding high at the moment on the huge sales and wide acclaim of their Xbox 360 action game Gears of War. However, the game that PC users really want to play is the third (or technically the fourth) game in their multiplayer shooter series. Using the graphical power Unreal Engine 3, UT 2007 is supposed to be faster paced than its predecessor UT 2007 and add new elements such as Unreal Warfare, which supposedly takes the tactical mode of UT 2004’s Onslaught to the next level. The images and gameplay footage of this game already has us jumping up and down for Epic to get the promised multiplayer beta demo out to us ASAP.