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The gaming gimmicks of 2008

How videogames will grab your attention this year

Words: Ben Richardson, GamesRadar UK

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Really Real Fire

Now that videogames have nailed regular physics - crates, barrels, boxes and the like - it's time to embrace more ambitious challenges. Starting with fire. As any convicted pyromaniac will surely tell you, fire often seems to have a life of its own, hungrily devouring everything in its path. The exciting task for developers is to replicate the voracious, consuming nature of an inferno and realistically model the damage it causes.

Pseudo-sequel Alone in the Dark will use the dynamics of non-scripted fire in actual gameplay. Developer Eden wants you to "play with fire" and emphasise that fire will be the "main weapon against your enemies". Broken chairs and table legs can be held aloft for light or swung like big burny clubs, but will eventually crumble in the heat. And, impressively, any fires that rage unchecked will spread through the environment, potentially cutting off your escape or trapping you in a fiery tomb. So it's fortunate that you'll be able to put out fires as well as start them.

Actual sequel Far Cry 2 also dallies with the flames. Developer Ubisoft Montreal promises that in the game's African savannah environment, "every element that looks flammable can burn", which will be interesting to see in action, given that Far Cry 2 is set in a wilderness of tinder-dry foliage and ramshackle wooden huts. But that's not all - the developers have even implemented a "dynamic weather system" with volumetric wind that will spread any blaze like, well, wildfire.

And Mercenaries 2: World in Flames gets involved with the flambé fun, too, with "general purpose fire technology" enabling you to light up buildings, vehicles and people. The game's focus on black gold (that's oil, in case you're not a money-hungry industrialist) provides a flammable addition to the action, with developer Pandemic suggesting that we "shoot holes in the sides of fuel trucks, watch the oil spill under the feet of unsuspecting enemies and light it on fire with a match!". [Insert inevitable 'Toasty' remark here]