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In addition to the many
promising adventure games at this year’s E3, there were many
upcoming games of interest in other genres. Here are the games for
the adventurous adventurer that caught my eye:

Absolutely the
Two Games Everyone Should Have On Their Shopping List: Deus
Ex: Invisible War and Thief (this third installment
of the series doesn’t yet have a subtitle or an official Roman
numeral).

Warren Spector, one of
the gamegods I most admire in the business, is overseeing both projects
at Ion Storm’s Austin studios. The two games are sharing technology,
which is benefiting both games tremendously. The original Deus
Ex was a stunningly entertaining first person action-RPG hybrid,
sort of a thinking-person’s shooter. In the sequel, the stealth
elements will be so beefed up that it will be possible to go through
the entire game without ever touching a weapon! Like the first game,
the problems presented in Invisible War will have multiple
solutions, depending on the player’s style. The game will be
finished within a few months.

A bit further down the
pike is the third installment of the Thief series. After
LookingGlass was shut down by Eidos, many of us despaired of ever
seeing another Thief game. Happily the project is alive and
well at Ion Storm Austin. The original game shattered the conventions
of first-person action gaming, by making the goal to avoid confrontation,
thus effectively inventing the “first person sneaker”
genre. Despite the greatness of the game’s original premise,
the designers lost their nerve in places, especially near the end,
when the game became much more of a pure action game (LookingGlass’s
classic System Shock 2 had the exact same problem). The sequel,
Thief 2: The Metal Age, was the best example I’ve ever
seen of a game designers really listening to fans and fixing everything
in the sequel. Thief 2 set a very high standard, and the
team is working hard to surpass it.

One of the most notable
features of the new Thief game is that it is much more colorful.
The designers really expanded the palette from the first two games,
and the result is extremely attractive. Also, the real-time dynamic
lighting effects (such as fluidly changing shadows cast by torch-bearing
guards) are truly stunning, and will add to the game play. I await
the finished game with almost maniacal eagerness.

IT’S IN THE
CARDS

I’m also looking
forward to the visually stunning Etherlords II from the nice
folks at Strategy First. The game will be a visually realized combat
game similar to Magic: The Gathering. Instead of static cards,
however, the battles will be completely visual. I’ve been interested
in fantasy card games since ArcoMage in the Might and Magic
games, and looks like a visually sumptuous way to learn this kind
of game. Offering more RPG elements than the first game, meaning characters
can accumulate experience and skills.

KILLING, KILLING
AND MORE KILLING!!

Serious Sam continues
to influence the first person shooter genre for the better. Three
over-the-top shooters caught my attention at the Expo.

The first was DreamCatcher’s
Painkiller. I had a lot of fun playing the demo level of
this frantic shooter, which took place in a sort of beautiful, drowned
Venice. The graphics were superb and the action fast, furious, and
entertaining.

The second was LucasArts’
Armed and Dangerous. Despite its regrettably dull name, the
game looks to be an absolute riot, with over-the-top situations and
a generally lite tone. I’m not including screenshots because
I don’t think they do the game justice at all.

The third was, of course,
UbiSoft’s XIII. With absolutely killer cell-shaded,
graphic novel style, this gritty game looks irresistible.

FRESH PRINCE OF
PERSIA

You can’t keep a
good action-adventure hero down. I was about the only critic in the
universe who liked 1999’s Prince of Persia 3D, and
I’m not sure how many people expected a fourth game in the series
to ever get made. Well, glory be, UbiSoft has assembled some of the
peppy guys who made Splinter Cell to create the gorgeous
and forthcoming Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. The game’s
visuals and musical score are sensuously beautiful and engaging, and
the controls appear to be far more streamlined than they were in the
last episode. Designed with the participation of Prince creator
Jordan Mechner, this is a game to truly look forward to.

UbiSoft’s Beyond
Good and Evil looks like a very promising action-adventure title,
as well. We’ll tell you more about this title in the upcoming
months.

IT’S A WARCRAFT
WORLD

I’ve yet to play
a massively multiplayer online role playing game, but that is going
to change this year. I’ve been wanting to dip my toe in this
wild new gaming frontier, and I thought, who do I trust more than
Blizzard? Those guys sure know how to build a damn game, so why shouldn’t
they be able to build a damn good online game?

I’m not sure how
close the game is to release, but seeing it in action at E3 just made
me more eager for it. It takes place in the same orc-infested fantasy
world as the Warcraft series, but this time around the game focus
is role-playing action, not real-time strategy. The graphics look
fluid and inviting, and the game mechanics seem solid. Hurry up, Blizzard,
I’m ready to stomp me some orcs!!

NERDS IN PARADISE

The E3 wasn’t all
great games and fraternizing with those that make them. Like every
year, it was a kaleidoscope of the good, the bad, and the scary. Once
again, Booth Babes ruled. There seemed to be fewer of them this year,
and each one (or set) had a huge line of nerds waiting for a titillating
photo op. I say this with a hint of bitter jealousy, because as always,
there was precious little eye candy for women (and the homos who love
them). Okay, there were a couple of grunts at the America’s
Army booth, but they were nothing to write a Dear John letter home
about.

I’ll close this overlong
article with some further random observations from the festivities.

Rudest booth: 3DO.
I wish I could give you the scoop on what’s happening with the
beloved Might and Magic RPG series and the Heroes of
Might and Magic turn-based strategy series. But about a minute
into my conversation with the 3DO guy at the booth, another conventioneer
with a more impressive credential than mine (hard to imagine, I know)
suddenly insinuated himself into our conversation. 3DO guy dropped
me faster than a jittery hospital orderly with a newly-dead SARS victim.
I literally ceased to exist to the guy. Now, this seems like very
odd behavior, considering the trouble that both of the above-mentioned
franchises are in. Indeed, the RPG series is “circling the toilet
bowl,” according to Computer Gaming World editor Jeff Green.
Note to 3DO: Not a good time to be rude to friendly journalists.

Worst booth placement:
Eidos put Thief right next to an incredibly loud wrestling
game. What were they thinking? This is one of the quietest game franchises
ever, and the sound design of the first two games was glorious. I
assume the sound on this third installment will also be sweet, but
I sure wasn’t able to hear much of it at the E3.

Most cynical use
of a movie license: Bethesda’s Softwork’s Pirates
of the Caribbean. Now don’t get me wrong; I think Bethesda
is a superior shop which puts out consistently interesting titles.
Last year’s Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind was a landmark
RPG, and I enjoyed their strategy/RPG hybrid, Sea Dogs, enough to
be very interested in the sequel.

Sea Dogs II, by
Russian developer Akella, was at last year’s E3, and I was looking
forward to seeing how far along it was. Curiously though, all talk
of Sea Dogs II disappeared recently on the Bethesda website,
right around the same time they announced that they were now in business
with Disney and would be producing the game tie-in with Disney’s
huge summer 2003 release Pirates of the Caribbean.

The only problem is, the
game is still essentially Sea Dogs II. About the only two
things it has in common with the film is the fact that it has pirates
and that it takes place in the Caribbean. Not a single character or
story element from the Disney film will be found in the game. And
while I think it’s going to be a very good game, it’s
rich and complex blend of strategy and role-playing is going to appeal
to the hardcore gamer, not the lightweight 14 year old who thinks
Johnny Depp is cool. I’m afraid Bethesda is going to have an
awful lot of angry gamers on their hands when they shell out their
bucks for this game, expecting a merry game version of the rollicking
summer event movie, and instead find Akella’s somber and serious
Sea Dogs II instead.

Jacqui Lund of Bethesda
assures me that the game will be flexible enough to appeal to casual
gamers as well as hard-core gamers, and also explained that there
will be a tie-in with the Black Pearl backstory. We’ll see .
. . and if it turns out that all of my concerns were unwarranted,
I’ll say so in a future article.

Best celebrity
sighting: Jane Jensen, of course!

Of course, the coolest
thing about the E3 is the opportunity to torture Randy in person for
a few days, after having only the phone and email to do it for the
rest of the year! [What Ray has failed to realize is that,
as editor of JA, I have the opportunity to have the last word. So
Ray, I now say with nothing but love in my heart – Bite Me!]