Hellgate: London

Demonic destruction

Flagship’s first game is the spiritual successor and follow-up to Blizzard’s seminal Diablo series. It’s not Diablo III, but it’s made by the same folks that made Diablo. Hellgate pits you against demons in near-future London, a setting that won’t just challenge your skills, but also dazzle your eyes.

The game plays very differently depending on the faction you choose. The Cabalist and Templar fill the standard RPG ranged and melee archetypes. But when you play as a Hunter, you’ll play the game from the first person perspective with traditional RPG elements—and utilize your twitch skills.

Naturally, Hellgate will turn on the eye candy too. We know that the game will support DirectX 10, but the graphical wizards at Flagship haven’t announced what they’ll be using it for, yet.

Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway

Now with bazookas!

Welcome to Operation Market Garden, gentlemen. Our favorite tactical World War II shooter returns with a trip to Monty’s folly powered by a spiffy new version of the Unreal Engine and a cargo plane full of new features.

Hell’s Highway implements a much more realistic cover system. You duck behind an object, pop out to shoot, then duck back down before Jerry draws a bead on you. The only problem with this approach is that the game has a real materials engine, and much of the cover will get chewed up under a constant barrage of fire. Destructible cover sounds like fun, but it’s a double-edged sword—you can tear up the Germans’ cover, but they can do the same to you!

Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat

We were tired of killing Nazis too

Let’s face it, by now most gamers have been fighting World War II longer than the war actually lasted. We’ve killed more virtual Nazis than ever existed. So Infinity Ward’s decision to move beyond WWII is a welcome respite.

Call of Duty 4 is set in a hypothetical conflict in the former Soviet bloc. You can expect a heaping helping of small-squad action across a wide variety of terrain types—we’ve seen missions in burnt-out towns, grassy savannahs, and even forested hillsides.

The amazing thing is that Call of Duty 4 is a DirectX 9 game, eschewing support for DirectX 10’s bells and whistles for higher frame rates and still-unbelievable graphics in the legacy API.

Assassin's Creed

Crowd surfer

You take a contract, find your target, and kill him. It’s that simple. Except it’s not. Instead of another modern-day version of Hitman, Ubisoft: Montreal has created a medieval Agent 47 who makes his way through the sandbox that is Crusades-era Jerusalem.

The catch is that you’re a free-running assassin, and your biggest problem isn’t the mark firing arrows at you or the town constabulary, but rather the thronging crowd filled with beggars, merchants, and other townsfolk. How do you catch your target without drawing too much attention to yourself? Simple, you get off the streets and instead climb walls, swing from scaffolds, and dance across rooftops. Unlike Prince of Persia, in which your wall-walking is limited to specific areas, in Assassin’s Creed, if you can see it, you can climb it.

Next: Orange Box, The Agency, Gears of War, and UTIII