I think it's about time I delved into the research of games that will be released in the near future. What do we have to look forward to?

There's The Sims 2, of course. Having been a fan of the series since mid-1999 (that's seven months before its initial release) I have been looking forward to an improved version of the game since before they announced it. It looks great and I can hardly wait, although I know for a fact that I will have to. The release date given to the dealers has changed over and over again; the newest date is September 2004. In the UK, that is. The Americans will probably get it weeks, if not months, before that. Let's not get into the discussion of releasing films and games again. It's Sunday and everyone should be happy. Anyway, the longer we'll have to wait, the better, hopefully. Countless of games have suffered from the Premature Release Syndrome (sounds naughty, but it's not) and some of them have even been so full of bugs and flaws (same thing, really) that they are near impossible to play and people have tossed the games away, not even returning to them when patches are released.

I've heard news of Lords of the Realm 3 being very close to a release these days. This real-time strategy (RTS) game looks promising, and having played both of its predecessors I am having high hopes for this instalment. Also, I love playing games based (not too loosely) on historical eras. Heck, I love history in any form, really.

Gangland looks a bit intriguing, although I fear it's a little bit on the action side for me to bother with it. I'm sort of looking for a better version of Gangsters 2, but I'm not too much of an RTS fan. I love Rise of Nations because there you have the possibility of pausing the game while continuing to give orders. Perfect blend!

Speaking of Rise of Nations - the first expansion pack for that game will be released in April (in the US). Lots of borrowed thumbs up!

Now we come to Atari. Known for making lots of arcade games during the early 80's, then moving on to making the infamous Atari 2600 game machine before creating the Atari ST computer that became the sworn enemy of Commodore's Amiga 500, they have now moved on to making games. Yes, they have been making them all along, it's just that lately they have bought some of the old game publishers and thus have legal rights to a lot of dear old game series. So far, they have shown to be a mediocre company even in their new shape; by that I mean they seem to be rush-releasing most of their games because of bad marketing, leaving their usually patient fans more disappointed for every game released. They keep promising cutting edge games with amazing graphics and yadi-yada, and all we get are games that need patches upon patches. Still, I am naïve enough to think they have changed since their last game, so I am coming back to them constantly. What annoys me, is that they now own the rights to some of my favourite games: Civilisation, Master of Orion, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Rollercoaster Tycoon. Bob only knows how they will go about screwing up those games. Tell me, doesn't Tortuga look a lot like Pirates! Gold? Still, Jade Empire looks like another quality release from BioWare, responsible for making some of the best role-playing games (RPGs) out there - like the previously mentioned ones.

My guess is this year will be as good as any other gaming year, and no matter what happens I'll always have my old favourites to fall back on. Because I don't need fancy graphics to have a great time with a game. One of my favourites is Alter Ego, which is in four colours and feature nothing but clicking and reading text. Yet it seems to be the inspiration behind The Sims, which is undoubtfully the most successful game franchise ever and which got a lot more females to sit by the computer for hours on end, playing that once hated phrase computer games.

Current track: Michael Jackson - Thriller (off MTV)

Labels: computers, gaming