We've looked ahead at books and movies and today we're going to look at some of the video games (consoles and PC, not MMOs) that will be releasing this year. As it's March already, let's get cracking!

Battleforge is a new Real Time Strategy game from EA that is trying to bring something new to the RTS arena. Not only is it a psuedo-MMO, more along the lines of a 'persistent' world, but it is also trying to do something about the complexity that tech trees (the units you build) can bring to the game. They are removing the tech trees completely and are, instead, taking a page from the collectibale card game world and allow the players to build a 'deck' of units that are available in game. Players can also create different decks as they see fit. As you might imagine, players can buy new 'cards' to fill out their collections (random cards in the boosters) and to build decks from.

I've played Battleforge a bit and I think the CCG aspect of the game is brilliant and fits well with the RTS gameplay. No longer is a player forced into building the same units over and over again, in order, to gain the uber-units they want. Now they can create the decks with units they want and then gain control of the power points in-game to allow them to build (well, cast) them. Now you'll see armies as individual as the players behind them.

The one note of caution here is the same thing that hampers CCGs everywhere: card mix, card power and money. When buying the boosters, you don't know what cards you are going to get, leading you to have to buy many boosters just to get the card you need, and you end up with a ton of useless extras.

Battleforge attempts to alleviate this by having a 'card market' built into the game where cards can be swapped (this also keeps the cards out of the third-party auction site like eBay). Setting the right balance between the cards is also key. I haven't played enough to know if any cards are over/under powered, but I suspect this will be an ongoing issue. Lastly, to combat the ability of those with a lot of money to buy all the boosters they need, Battleforge will be limiting players to purchasing a certain number of boosters per month. I'm not sure of any constraints on trading cards. So, it looks like they will actively be trying to mitigate some of the issues inherant in a CCG model.

Battleforge isn't really a SF game, it's really a fantasy setting with players using 'mana' to cast spells (summon units). However, some of the units are SF/Steampunk-tinged which caught my eye, and the developers have done a nice job with differentiating the look and powers of each color of cards.

And Phenomic has also gone to great lengths to create a varied and interesting soundtrack, and they've even created a trailer for the music:

Playing Battleforge reinforces my belief that RTS games aren't for me. Not because Battleforge is bad or that it's broken or anything like that. It's my inability to manage my units quickly enough to do anything in a timely fashion that keeps me from enjoying RTS games. However, I think if RTSes are your thing, you should check out Battleforge. The ability to customize the units you'll need in game adds a new level to the genre, one I wouldn't be surprised to see other developers use. If you're interested, Battleforge is currently in open beta (anyone can test it out), before launching on March 23rd.

Edge of Twilight bills itself as a "3rd person action adventure game set in a unique post-apocalyptic, steampunk fantasy world that has been split into separate realms of Day and Night." When you say "post-apocalyptic" and "steampunk" in the same sentence, you've got my attention. But let's take a look at the trailer:

I'm thinking 'steampunk' was thrown in for its 'buzz' instead of Twilight actually having a lot of it, though there is a bit. The key concept here is the Day/Night duality. The hero, Lex, has a different appearance and attacks depending on whether he is in Day or Night. The player will use Lex's ability to swap between the 'realities' to solve puzzles and engage in combat. Sounds a lot like Metroid Prime 2:Echoes. And while the trailer, I don't think, showed mind bending graphics, the artwork on the website shows a lot of promise, and the trailer footage is from a very early build, so there's hope. I'll keep an eye on this one, during Q3 2009.

Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!

With Bill Murray hating on Harold Ramis, it looked like there would never be a Ghostbusters 3 to wash the taste of Ghostbusters 2 out of our mouths. And now, here comes Ghostbusters The Video Game, starring the original cast, to help ease our pain. In fact, it may have eased everyone's pain as there is now talk that there may well be a Ghostbusters 3 in the future. Regardless, what we'll be getting on June 16th is the next installment in the Ghostbustin' story, set two years after Ghostbusters 2 and involving you, Walter Peck and ghosts. Heck, that could be the entirety of the story and I'd still want to play because it's Ghostbusters (still one of my all time favorite movies). So I'll be strapping on my unlicensed nuclear accelerator to my back and I'll be off busting ghosts, for fun!

Singularity is a new FPS from Activision and Raven Software that places you on a secret Soviet island, Katorga-12, after your plane crash lands there. Time, it seems, isn't always flowing in one direction, and with your time manipulation device, you'll be able to use the power of time itself to solve problems and defeat enemies.There are two main attractions here: the infiltration of a secret, but now defunct Soviet military and scientific installation, and the Time Manipulation Device. The TMD has four functions: 1)Age - moves an object forward along its timeline causing it to, well, age; 2) Revert - moves an object backward along its timeline with some, interesting results for humans; 3) Stasis - pulls an object out of its timeline and into yours, causing it to freeze in time; 4) Impulse - pushes an object away from you violently, and when combined with stasis, acts like the gravity gun from Half-Life 2 (which is awesome).

Gameinformer magazine had a full article about Singularity in its February issues and, wow, I'm all over this one. Just think of the puzzle possibilities here. You come across a rusted out, collapsed bridge over a pit or some such. You'd target part of the bridge with 'Revert' and cause it to move back in time (No Doc Brown necessary) and re-assemble so you can then waltz across safely. As you might imagine, the 'Age' function might cause some rather gruesome things to happen when applied to people, and Raven Software isn't shying away from showing the nasty results. Additionally, the island you are on seems to be suffering from time quakes, causing you to skip back and forth in the island's timeline. It will be up to you to figure out why and how to stop it so you can get back to where you belong.

Time travel, Cold War secrecy, mature themes and an abundance of foes puts this one on my list for sometime in 2009.

One of the more visceral ideas in military science fiction is the idea of an orbital insertion of troops to a planet. Section 8 takes this idea and incorporates it into a science fiction FPS. When an insurrection movement begins to decimate the colonies of Earth, the military turns to the 8th Infantry to push back. The cool idea: Before each battle, you get to pick the drop location, then you actually perform the orbital drop onto the battlefield. Sweet! And with all that hardware in orbit, you'll be able to call for on-demand drops of armor and equipment. Sweet again! The trailer is definitely not in-game footage, but if the game lives up to the idea, it should be great.

Yet another game I'll be looking forward to at some undisclosed point in 2009.

What do you get when you mix a rocket pack a la The Rocketeer, Nikola Tesla, an alternate dimension, a pulp SF aesthetic and modern game play? You get Dark Void, Airtight Games entry into the 2009 SF gaming sweepstakes. The key ingredient here is the upgradeable rocket pack (thanks to Tesla), which opens up the vertical dimension for some interesting game play, and I don't mean just flying, although there is that. The game play trailer below is long, but worth it. Check out the neat 'verticality' ability the jet pack opens up. Add in a nifty cover system like Gears of War and the action oriented flying from Crimson Skies (which is a very fun game) and you have a winner on game play alone.

Toss in the pulp SF inspired visuals with a story of alternate dimension alien antagonists and you have an apparently awesome SF game. I hadn't even seen, or heard, about this game until I opened up this month's Game Informer and saw the short article about the game. It wasn't until I saw the game play footage that I was sold, sometime in 2009.

There you have it, my picks for the SF games to look forward to in 2009. What about yours?

Comments (4) | PermaLink | Category: Games
Posted by JP Frantz at Thursday March 12, 2009 at 12:25 AM
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