Looking Ahead to 2008
Role-Playing GamesLike strategy games, role-playing games feel at home on the PC. Sure, I played through Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II on a Playstation 2, but the experience was somewhat lacking. Even today, RPGs tend to feel shoehorned onto consoles for technical reasons, and - yes, I'm going there - a bit dumbed-down for wider appeal. Getting a role-playing game just right is no easy task (just ask Obsidian Entertainment, whose Neverwinter Nights 2 received criticism as buggy, un-optimized and sometimes just plain broken at release). The difficultly in developing a playable, enjoyable RPG may explain the dearth of releases in the genre. New releases are few and far between, and not many are worth taking home. Reality Pump's Two Worlds is an uninspired attempt to clone Bethesda's The Elder Scroll IV: Oblivion, which leaves The Witcher (CDProjekt) as the only full RPG released in 2007 worth installing (not counting the console-to-PC port of the two-year-old Jade Empire). Both Oblivion and Neverwinter Nights 2 received excellent expansion packs this year (in The Shivering Isles and Mask of the Betrayer, respectively), but is there anything really new coming in 2008?  Ascaron Entertainment's RPG Sacred 2 was recently pushed to September 2008 Answer: there most certainly is, and the line-up is looking good, with a few big releases in the queue. As is often the case with RPGs, release dates aren't etched in stone, but we have a fairly good idea of what the 2008 RPG release schedule will look like. The first few months of 2008 will be devoid of RPG goodness, but the releases start to heat up in the second half of the year. 2004's Sacred was a capable if not great game, and developer Ascaron Entertainment is hard at work on a sequel, Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, due sometime September 2008. Early preview commentary has Sacred 2 pegged as a prettied-up version of Sacred, with unexceptional combat and gameplay, though there's still time left for the game to receive more polish. Codemasters is bringing an interesting RPG to the PC in Rise of the Argonauts. Developer Liquid Entertainment, fresh off the hot 2006 release of - no joke - Desperate Housewives: The Game, is behind the Unreal Engine 3-powered game, and early screenshots show a lovely game world with fierce monsters. If you slept during mythology lectures, then at least view the 1963 film "Jason and the Argonauts", a classic in early special effects; you'll take away the meat of the story. In the game, you'll play as Jason, and bounce between various islands, each with various Greek mythological themes. It's a big jump to move from a television drama license to the world of ancient mythology, but Rise of the Argonauts looks action-packed, and with any luck the game won't be another poor God of War rip-off.
Directly following the start of the New Year, Microsoft Game Studios' Kingdom Under Fire series will see its fourth release. Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom, developed by Blueside - the team behind Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes - is the series' first venture onto the PC. Previously an Xbox-only title, Circle of Doom eschews the series melee combat and strategy roots in favor of a more traditional action RPG experience. In addition to intense combat and a lighthearted plot, Microsoft Game Studios promises convincing randomly generated dungeons and outdoor environments. Such claims have yet to live up to their hype in the world of 3D, so it's normal to be skeptical. A strong co-op multiplayer experience could fill a void left by contemporary action RPGs, and if the gameplay matches the visuals shown in pre-release shots, Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom may give gamers reason to finally move on from Oblivion.
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