By injecting some new ideas into its current first-person shooter project, French developer Kylotonn (previously responsible for IronStorm) is hoping that Bet on Soldier will provide players with a refreshingly spicy twist to a genre that all-too-often relies on tried-and-tested formulas.Set somewhere in the not-too-distant future, BoS takes place against the grim backdrop of a war that has raged on earth for over eight destructive decades. However, the war isn't perpetuated by political, ...
» Read More

18 Mar 2005

Black & White 2

PC Preview | Black and White 2

Peter Molyneux slams a foot-tall pile of densely typed design documents in front of us. The sheer weight of paper brings to mind less Black & White, and more War and Peace.An apt parallel, given the game of dual moralities Molyneux and designer Ron Miller are trying to create. Good players build and nurture; bad players destroy. One is a god of peace; one is a god of war. Half city building; half RTS. You're asked to manage (not necessarily care for) a civilisation, in a reactive, physical ...
» Read More

8 Mar 2005

Act of War

PC Preview | Act of War: Direct Action

A typical day in London. The American President's motorcade works its way along The Mall towards Buckingham Palace. The streets are paved with placard waving protesters and cheering tourists as the sleek limo pushes through. Your squad is waiting up ahead in the Queen's courtyard, having swept the area for trouble. As the limo approaches, shots are fired. Terrorists, using the crowd as cover, are downing civilians with their AK-47s. The motorcade speeds off, your squad mobilises to take on the ...
» Read More

1 Feb 2005

Imperial Glory

PC Preview | Imperial Glory

Maybe if Eidos's merchandising wallahs had any imagination then we'd have strolled out of their recent Imperial Glory preview event weighed down with bottles of Napoleon brandy and pairs of logo-emblazoned wellies rather than predictable (but appreciated) armfuls of T-shirts, pens and office furniture (Please return the chairs - Legal Ed). IG, you see, is a strategy game that the Little Corporal and the Iron Duke would have loved, had their steam-powered, mahogany-cased Georgian PCs had the ...
» Read More

7 Jan 2005

Act of War

PC Preview | Act of War: Direct Action

There's a general rule of game development: don't fight the established games on their own ground. You'll almost certainly lose and sell jack, because they've got momentum and you're nobody. But it's a rule that Eugen are shunning. They've seen Command and Conquer: General's crown and think they can wrest it from its bleeding fingers.And they might just have what it takes. Act of War plays like C and C from an alternate dimension, where the old RTS warhorse kept on pushing into new territory, ...
» Read More

5 Jan 2005

Children of the Nile

PC Preview | Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile

Suddenly management games are sexy. Dressed to impress in glorious 3D, this Eygptian beauty is making us fall in love all over again. Especially as our latest squeeze feels like a reunion with an old flame. Developer Tilted Mill is built from the ashes of the Impression Games team, and Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile inevitably doffs its dusty pith helmet to their seminal empire-builder, Pharaoh. What's more, the move to 3D accommodation has retained the solid foundations that made the ...
» Read More

15 Dec 2004

Battlefield 2

PC Preview | Battlefield 2

Arriving pretty much out of nowhere, the original Battlefield 1942 effectively established the multi-player war genre. While the single-player game was little more than a tutorial, the online mode saw dozens of gamers meeting up to shoot, bomb and stab each other. It's a measure of the game's lasting appeal that more than two years after its release, an average Sunday night finds more than 5000 players still going at it with a vengeance.The Vietnam-based follow-up proved less popular, but fans ...
» Read More

14 Dec 2004

Close Combat: First to Fight

PC Preview | Close Combat

Those of you who have been taking notes will recall that the Close Combat games have crafted some fine, realistic combat over the years. These were strategy games that boasted attention to detail, tactical splendidness and, according to Tim 'Rommelbuster' Stone, included some of the finest Nazi death-rattles of all time. First to Fight is attached to this series in name only. We're no longer posing heroically in the lanes and meadows of Normandy, but instead getting gritty with the terroriztas ...
» Read More

14 Dec 2004

Knights of the Old Republic II

PC Preview | Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords

The genius of Bioware was to set their game 5000 years before Phantom Menace. Lucas's universe is a rich one and, while his films do not necessarily live up to the dream, it remains an ideal place in which to set an intricate, ethically driven RPG adventure. And this time around, that adventure is being written by Chris Avalone, who wrote the literate and much admired RPG Planescape: Torment. KOTOR II is thus a sequel that we looked in on recently with something of the excitement of ...
» Read More

2 Dec 2004

Stronghold 2

PC Preview | Stronghold 2

Being a King is ace. Don't just take my word for it - turn your eyes towards the secondary evidence of the history books. Check how many rulers have their cause of death listed as consuming a 'surfeit of lampreys'. One would be strange enough, but the number of monarchs whose guts have been ripped asunder by one-too-many jellied eels is frightening. Being able to gorge yourself to gastric-gut-explosions? Now that's a job. And with Stronghold 2, Firefly are attempting to bring you closer to that ...
» Read More