Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
First up is the highly anticipated StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. The sequel to one of the most popular RTS games ever, this new entry in the series continues the story of the Protoss, Terran, and Zerg, which will each have their own campaign. The first,Wings of Liberty contains the Terran campaign, and the other two will be released as expansions. The focus, however, is not on the single-player experience. Most of the improvements and features are for the multi-player aspect, such as better battle.net integration and a new ladder system for ranked matches, which will line up players to compete only with those close to them in talent and experience. For the most part, however, this new game looks to be mostly an engine update for the now-classic game—allowing players who just can’t pull themselves away from StarCraft to finally enter a new era of graphics and matchmaking. Unfortunately for those who never played the original, like me, this means that you likely will still never be able to play StarCraft with your friends, because they will still have had a lot more practice than you, even when playing this new game for the first time.
Clash of the Titans
The movie tie-in game Clash of the Titans will offer players the chance to play through the story of Perseus, as he battles the forces of Hades in an attempt to stem the tide of the demonic invasion. The game follows Perseus’ story as presented in the movie, plus about 80 weapons and over 100 enemy types thrown in. In addition, a small role-playing element has Perseus slowly become more powerful as he defeats, and steals the weapons of, the many legions of darkness-spawned creatures.
Arc Rise Fantasia
Arc Rise Fantasia is a jRPG with old-school inspiration. Contaminant Dragons are swarming the Meridian Empire, and a team of heroes must defeat an ancient evil to save the Empire. The story might be a bit trite, but fans of classic jRPGs should find a lot to love in this game. Although this probably won’t stop any of us from choosing our party based on which three characters would make the best cosplay, the combat is actually a bit complex, and will likely take some time to master. Each character has their own unique combat style, which creates unique combo moves depending on which characters are chosen to be the combat party at the time. The characters all share an AP gauge, from which all actions must pull their cost, allowing some greater tactical freedom.
Commander: Conquest of the Americas
The Icrontic Spotlight this week lights up the canvas sails of Commander: Conquest of the Americas. The developers describe this game as the spiritual successor to East India Company, and it really looks like they took a lot of fan feedback to heart. EIC was a great economic simulation game with lots of detail, but lackluster combat and a general absence of “polish”. This new game, however seems to have really found that bit of polish, and while the trading and production system is more granular, it also seems more intuitive. The battle system has also been improved, making the battles at sea a bit less boring to participate in. For plot, the whole game has been moved to the Colonial-era Americas, allowing the player to focus on establishing colonies and building their economy through trade with the Old World.
Following is a list of this week’s announced North American releases:
Windows
- Commander: Conquest of the Americas
- Need for Speed World
- StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
Wii
- Arc Rise Fantasia
- Chuck E. Cheese’s Party Games
- Dive: The Medes Islands Secret
- Heavy Fire: Special Operations
- Aero the Acro-Bat (VC – SNES)
DS
- Absolute BrickBuster
- Crystal Monsters
- Face Pilot: Fly With Your Nintendo DSi Camera!
- Galaxy Racers
- Petz Hamsterz Family
- Puffins: Let’s Race!
- Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena
Xbox 360
- Alan Wake: The Signal
- BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
- Clash of the Titans
- Hydro Thunder Hurricane
PS3
- BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
- Clash of the Titans
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