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Most Anticipated PC Games of 2007 January 03, 2007 John JCal Callaham |
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Summary: Today John goes over the PC games we're most excited to see this coming year!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 4 ) |
FiringSquad decided to take a look at the huge number of games coming out in 2007 for the PC and compile a list of the top 20 that we think are the most anticipated for next year. As with our console list, this is not our prediction of what will be the best PC games; just the ones that we are most excited to play. Also, released schedules can and do change so a few of these titles might not make 2007. Finally there are some games slated for next year that haven’t been officially announced yet. With all that in mind, let’s take a look at our picks for our top 20 games.
20: Left 4 Dead (Turtle Rock Studios: Sometime In 2007) We love co-op games and lately there has been a trend toward putting in more co-op features in consoles and PC titles. Developer Turtle Rock Studios has worked with Valve on their Counter-Strike: Source game and now the developer is branching out on their own with their own Source engine game. Left 4 Dead is supposed to bring co-op gameplay to an all new level as you and a party of friend team up to shoot a zombie horde. Will this game make this kind of gameplay as popular as Counter-Strike’s team mode? We sure hope so.
19. Pirates of the Burning Sea (Flying Lab Software: Mid 2007) In between the official announcement of this pirates themed MMO a few years ago, pirates suddenly became hot in pop culture. Flying Lab Software hopes to capitalize on this with Pirates of the Burning Sea. Originally the game was going to concentrate on pirate ship combat but a few months ago Flying Lab announced that people would also be able to fight each other in avatar combat, complete with sword fights and swashbuckling moves. This game has the potential to be the sleeper MMO hit of next year.
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18. Medal of Honor: Airborne (Electronic Arts: Mid 2007) EA started the WWII shooter genre with its Medal of Honor series but has gotten some of its shine taken away with Activision’s Call of Duty series. EA hopes to take the series in a new direction with Medal of Honor: Airborne which as the name implies will concentrate on the paratrooper experience in the war. Not only that but EA is promising non-linear gameplay; when you parachute in a new level your landing point will not be scripted. You will start the mission wherever you land. Can EA revitalize their long time franchise? We will see if this new gameplay approach will do just that.
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17. Age of Conan (Funcom-Eidos: First Half of 2007) Robert E Howard’s world of barbarians and fantasy has gotten a huge audience and now developer Funcom and publisher Eidos plan to bring that world to life in this long awaited MMO title. Look for a single player game at the beginning as you venture into Hyboria as well as massive multiplayer battles that promise to be as brutal and bloody as the books, comics and movies based on Howard’s universe. This different take on the fantasy MMO, combined with Funcom’s previous experience with Anarchy Online, could bring in a wider audience.
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| Sixteen to eleven | Page:: ( 2 / 4 ) |
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14. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (Sigil Games: First Quarter of 2007) When you have some of the members of the original Everquest team on your side making a new MMO game you have to sit up and take notice. Vanguard may have been in development for a long time but the end result could bring in a lot of Everquest members into this game. With a whopping 19 different races to choose from, an emphasis on group based gameplay and a massive world to explore, Sigil Games’ debut title will certainly be one to watch for among the crowd of MMO titles.
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13. Command and Conquer 3 (Electronic Arts: March 2007) After a detour into the near future with Command and Conquer: Generals, EA’s Los Angeles division heads back to basics with Command and Conquer 3, bringing back the battles between the GDI and Nod armies along with an all new alien race as well. Improved graphics, new pro gamer features for tournaments and a return to the game’s live action cut scenes are the stand outs here. Will EALA bring back the magic that the original Westwood title had for C&C 3. We should know more in March.
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12. Lord of the Rings Online (Turbine-Midway: First Half Of 2007) Turbine has a lot of experience in the MMO genre but no game they have developed has been as highly anticipated as this title which brings J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy trilogy and universe to the MMO realm. That alone sets it apart from the flood of similar titles coming in 2007 and you can bet there will be people who have never played an MMO title who will try out this game. Will Turbine take advantage of this built in audience and deliver a game worthy of all Middle Earth fans? We should see very soon.
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| Ten to six | Page:: ( 3 / 4 ) |
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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| Top Five Games | Page:: ( 4 / 4 ) |
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4. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (Splash Damage-id Software-Activision: First Half of 2007) First revealed back at E3 in May 2005, this continuation of id’s Quake series of shooters takes place before the events of Quake 2 with humans battling the Strogg invasion of Earth. This game, being developed primarily by Splash Damage (with some assistance from id) uses id’s new Mega-Texture technology for the Doom 3 engine that helps to create huge outdoor levels. The two playable sides (Human and Strogg) are also supposed to be completely different from each other and not just slightly changed versions of the same side. With id’s graphical basis combined with the experience that Splash Damage’s experience in creating the free team title Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory we think that the long wait for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will be worth the wait.
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3. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade (Blizzard: January 2007) The biggest selling PC game of 2007 might be released in the next couple of weeks. Blizzard’s mega selling MMORPG is still selling in the top five of all PC games over two years after its release. With over 7 million subscribers and reported revenues of over $1 billion a year, it’s the 800 pound gorilla of the PC game business at the moment. Now we finally get a proper expansion pack later this month in the form of Burning Crusade which adds two more playable classes, a rise of the level cap and generally more of the same gameplay that the growing audience of the original game has come to expect. How many copies will Burning Crusade sell in the first 24 hours of its release? We are betting a whole lot.
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2. Spore (Maxis-EA: Second Half Of 2007) Will Wright made multi-million selling games on premises like being a city planner (Sim City) and controlling a bunch of faux-humans in ordinary lives (The Sims). Now Wright and his team at EA’s Maxis are working on a game where you get to be a kind of demi-god. Spore’s premise is that the player evolves a creature from a single cell organism to a space faring civilization. Once you get your creature into space you can explore a universe populated by thousands of other civilizations made by other Spore players. We still don’t know how the final game will come together (the live presentations have basically been tech demos) but it’s hard to bet against Wright. We will see sometime in 2007 whether Spore can live up to the considerable hype it already has.
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And our number one most anticipated PC game of 2007 is….
1. Crysis: (Crytek-EA: Sometime in 2007) In the final analysis, picking the number one game on this list wasn’t much of a chore at all. Despite the number of great PC games scheduled for release in 2007, Crytek’s follow up game to their superb debut first person shooter title Far Cry is hands down the game we most want to put in our hard drive to see what makes it tick. Sure there is an interesting story involving an alien spaceship landing on a tropical island and the promise of features like new multiplayer modes, impressive AI and upgradable weapons. In the end, however, it’s the new Cryengine 2 that is the big attraction for us on this web site and we think for all of our readers. The videos and screenshots for this game, from the detailed character and weapons models to the lighting effects to the physical interactions to the sheer beauty of the environments, make Crysis as near to photo-realistic as you can get. While the game is supposed to also run on Windows XP and DirectX9, we and our readers really want to check out the version of Crysis on Windows Vista and DirectX10 where the visuals are already looking to be the next standard for PC games. It’s been a while since we have seen a quantum leap in PC game graphics that would make people want to invest in powerful hardware for their game rig and we think Crysis is going to be the game that will do it. If the game itself is as good as the visuals already appear to be, Crysis has the potential to be one of the best games released ever and that’s why it gets our vote as the most anticipated PC game of 2007.
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