Genre: FPS
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Criterion Studios
Release Date: February 28, 2006

Joe Keiser: Burnout 3 was a revelation in racing games when it came out in 2004, so when a shooting game from the creators of Burnout claims to be "Burnout for shooters," it'd be pretty foolish not to pay attention. Criterion, the game's creators, really knows their stuff – they're the daddy of Renderware, the most popular set of game creation tools in the industry, and they are virtuosos in its use. As a result, Black should be fast, fluid, and exhilarating. But perhaps most excitingly,

Grandia III is the newest title in Game Arts' role-playing series, using an all-new engine, N3, allowing for larger and more detailed environments.

Genre: RPG
Publisher: Namco
Developer: Namco
Release Date: February 7, 2006

Alicia Ashby: Tales has been the major Japanese RPG series to fare the worst when it comes to entering the American market, but the great success of Tales of Symphonia for the GameCube seems to be changing that. Tales of Legendia hopes to continue the hot streak, offering an amazingly fun fighting-game like active battle system that still lets you manage a party full of characters. The 3D graphics are sharp, incorporating elements from Soul Calibur III's prodigious graphics engine, and it contains about 25 minutes of new

Genre: RPG
Publisher: Atari
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Release Date: Q2 2006

Mark "RumDragon" Bolin: When I picked up the original Neverwinter Nights, I was just looking for more of my Baldur's Gate fix. What it ended up offered me was amazing, and for the sequel, I am most excited about building my own gaming world. The graphics are nothing short of amazing, and the world looks as if it will suck me in for a good long time. One of the greatest assets Obsidian has here are the legions of fans who will ravenously throw themselves at the modding

Get the Soul of the Ultimate Nation Trailer off WP (75mb)

Hack and Slash your way to fun with Soul of the Ultimate Nation. Accelerate the pace with Soul of the Ultimate Nation™, the multiplayer action online RPG that delivers more fun and more friends in less time than other MMORPGs. Form a party from thousands of gamers using Soul of the Ultimate Nation’s Battle Zone System and embark on a graphically stunning and ever-expanding online fantasy world that is ready for action when you are.

Under the reign of the Immortal Emperor, the Geist Empire has ruled the Brakion continent

Genre: Sports / Golf
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Redwood Shores
Release Date: Fall 2005

In the mist of video franchises for more popular sports such as football (Madden) and basketball (NBA Live), EA's Tiger Woods series of games has always been somewhat off to the side, discreetly making strides for those who like their sports a little quieter than most. They simultaneously strive for both accurate simulation and for accessibility, with the random fun feature thrown in for good measure. The series is now making its way to the next-generation systems, and we were able to take a

Genre: Simulation, MMO
Developer: Wild Tangent
Publisher: Wild Tangent
Release Date: June 20, 2005

My meeting first appointment at E3 turned out to be my meeting with Wild Tangent. It was an appropriately odd start to what was a very odd week; after all, going into the meeting, I knew nothing about the developer other than a rumor about them having made an RTS played via WinAmp’s browser. It turns out that they specialize in making fairly simple PC games, the sort of stuff that you can run on basically any computer or just play online. These are the

Get the Huxley trailer off WP (80mb)

Webzen introduces Huxley for the PC and Xbox 360™, the first game to allow console players and PC players to go head-to-head in first-person shooter (FPS) battles on a massively multiplayer scale.

In a post-apocalyptic world human beings have mutated and divided into Sapiens, Alternatives and Hybrids. The Sapiens and Alternatives both battle for control of the Earth’s resources as the Hybrids, a mysterious third race, fight for their very survival. In the PC game, players take on the role of the Sapiens or Alternative. On the Xbox 360™ they enter the game as

Genre : Action
Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Rare
Release Date: June 21, 2005

The first time I saw Conker: Live & Reloaded was at Microsoft’s pre-E3 conference in 2004. I will remember it for a long time, if for no other reason than I’d never seen a cartoon dog’s head explode before.

Conker is back. It is still gleefully offensive.

The singleplayer portion of our show is a fully remastered version of the infamous Conker’s Bad Fur Day, an N64 platformer that should not, by rights, exist. It starts with Conker, a somewhat generically cartoony squirrel, getting horrifically drunk and passing out

Genre : Action
Publisher: SCI
Developer: SCI
Release Date: November 2005

"So," the PR agent said, "have you ever seen I’m Gonna Get You Sucka?"

That was what first got my attention about Total Overdose, because truly, that film is the Wayans brothers’ magnum opus. What kept my attention was the insanity that followed.

Total Overdose is a sort of demented cross between Robert Rodriguez’s Mexican Westerns, i.e. Desperado, and Max Payne, with a lot of room for improvisation, a Mexican hiphop soundtrack (featuring bands like Control Machete), and a lot of points for style. You begin the game as an

JAWS, from Universal Pictures and Steven Spielberg, broke all box office records to become one of the highest grossing films of its time. The movie has had a lasting impact spanning decades and now JAWS Unleashed is poised to recapture the horror of being preyed upon by the most feared creature in the ocean. JAWS Unleashed recreates scenes and character spinoffs from the movie while allowing the player to experience the JAWS universe from a unique perspective—that of the Great White Shark.

Amity Island is growing, making corporate connections with prestigious companies like Environplus to improve the Island’s economy. Unfortunately the

Genre: FPS
Publisher: VU Games
Developer: Monolith
Release Date: September 7, 2005

Pre-order 'F.E.A.R.': PC

E3 is a very loud place, and it’s hard to appreciate a game like F.E.A.R. properly when you’re seeing it there for the first time. While Doom 3 flirted with some survival horror conventions, F.E.A.R. is an outright horror FPS. Instead of just using low light conditions to build a sense of terror, F.E.A.R. goes the extra mile and has your character periodically overwhelmed with nightmarish visions of floating phantoms and seas of blood. There’s also a creepy sense of sound to

Get the Paraworld trailer off WP (60mb)

ParaWorld is real-time strategy game set in a parallel world between a prehistoric world, where warring tribes and dinosaurs rule, and our world in the 19th century. Using an unprecedented unit management user interface called the “Army Controller,” players play a campaign, where they get to know and play three different tribes (Norsemen, Dustriders and Dragon Clan). As they advance in the campaign, players get to play all three tribes, but in the last third of the game they need to pick the best tribe for the level they are facing. If the

Genre: Space Sim
Publisher: 1C Company
Developer: Nikita
Release Date: Q3 2005

This is why you shouldn’t provoke developers. Actually, to be more accurate, this is exactly why you should.

During E3, we got a chance to sit down with 1C and view a slew of upcoming titles they will be publishing in the near future, one of which being the space sim Parkan 2. Not many people have heard of the title, and to be frank I only knew the name and the look as I sat down. As the title was demonstrated, I was told the game overall

Genre: RPG/RTS
Publisher: Atari
Developer: Liquid Entertainment
Release Date: Summer 2005

One of the weirder revelations coming out of this year's E3, if you're as big a damn nerd as I am – and you aren't, so don't even try to step to this – is that the new Dungeons & Dragons PC games -- Dungeons & Dragons Online and Dragonshard -- are set on, of all places, Eberron.

This is one of the few memorable campaign settings to come out since D&D's third edition hit shelves, because it is, in a way, a fantasy world taken to its natural

Genre: Racing
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Pseudo Interactive
Release Date: Q4 2005

Now this will involve thinking way back, the length of which being painful for some to attempt, but think back to when you were little. Remember how you had the Matchbox cars and imagined them racing each other and doing whatever was necessary to cross the finish line first? Missiles making opponents fly into heaps of rubble, explosions, and ridiculous amounts of violence? Maybe it's just my childhood that was as strange…

In either case, Pseudo Interactive has captured that same wanton destructive glee and digitized it in the

Genre: Action RPG
Publisher: Square-Enix
Developer: tri-ACE
Release Date: Q4 2005

One of the pleasant surprises about E3 was the presence of the special Radiata Stories localized demo. This game caused quite a stir when it was launched in Japan, debuting at #2 on the sales charts and receiving some astronomical review scores from Famitsu. Import fans were more divided on it; while the game was enjoyable, it was almost totally unlike anyone's expectations. A lot of the micro-management that fans expect from RPGs was simply not there, replaced with what was obviously an experiment in Western-style, open-ended gameplay

Get the MechAssault: Phantom War Trailer off WP (12mb)

MechAssault: Phantom War brings the future of interstellar combat to today’s handheld gamers in a third-person futuristic shooter. Players assume the role of a MechWarrior, an elite fighter trained to control the ultimate war machine of the 32nd century...the BattleMech. Gamers experience fast-action, 3D ‘Mech combat on the top screen, while the lower touch screen positions them inside the cockpit at the controls.

The year is 3134 and after 60 years of peace and prosperity, the Republic of the Sphere is now living in a dark age of ex-communication. Nearly all Hyperpulse

Genre: RPG
Publisher: Square-Enix
Developer: Square-Enix
Release Date: TBA

One of the titles I anticipated most before this year's E3 was Kingdom Hearts II, which picks up the story a year after Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. The Heartless are back once again, but so are Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Some of the supporting characters from the original game have returned, as well as a few new friends.

For me, Kingdom Hearts was always about two things: the gameplay, and the joy of seeing the Square-Enix characters working with the Disney characters. As far as gameplay goes, a lot of