GregHowley.com

We're in the midst of the summer videogame drought, which is fine with me, since between father duties and replaying Starcraft, my time is pretty much taken up. But there are a number of really good games that should be coming out before too long. My current list has a number of the same games on it as my last list, but there've also been a number of new games announced for which I'm super excited. I can't say for sure how much time I'll have to play any of them, as Lia requires a significant amount of maintenance, but for a few of these, I might be willing to forsake a bit of sleep.

So here is my list of games I'm really looking forward to, ending with the ones I'm really drooling over. Yes, it's a top ten list. So sue me.

Crysis is scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2007. It's the sequel to Far Cry, a very difficult shooter that I've really grown fond of. The tech demos all show gunfire going into the jungle and cutting down trees and grass - a very nice effect.

It's a big showcase for DirectX10 graphics, which are of course only available with Windows Vista. I don't plan on upgrading to Vista for at least another year - hopefully by then the Vista drivers and third-party software will be stabilized - but Crysis is supposed to run on XP systems as well. As long as the hardware requirements aren't too insane, I'll give it a shot.

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is coming out later this year, just in time for Christmas. It's a Nintendo DS game, so it might actually see more play from me than it would if it were a PC or Wii game. I've really been enjoying Twilight Princess, and I plan to play Ocarina of Time, which I've downloaded on the Virtual Console, as soon as I finish Twilight Princess.

The stylus controls in Phantom Hourglass look really well done, and should make for a great game.

Black Mesa: Source is actually only a user-created mod, but it's potentially the best user mod ever. The hard-working mod crew of Black Mesa: Source is totally recreating the original Half-Life game in Half-Life 2's Source engine. The original Half-Life was groundbreaking by all accounts, but having never played it until after I'd already played Half-Life 2, I've never had the appreciation for it that I probably should have. But when it's got all new textures, all new voices, and even new AI, the whole experience should be much fresher. Funky fresh, perhaps. Find the website at BlackMesaSource.com. When can we expect to be able to play the game? When it's done.

Brain Age 2: Due out on August 20th, the sequel to the critically acclaimed Nintendo DS title is in some ways just more of the same, but the one thing that makes me really want it is the piano player game, which essentially teaches you to sight-read music. The sign finder and word-scramble sound cool, and there's also apparently a speak-and-spell type game. Except it says multiple words simultaneously. And I hear that the handwriting recognition is much better this time around. Hopefully the voice recognition is better too. Blue. Blue! BLUE!!

Brain Age 2 also includes Sudoku and a version of Dr. Mario, which rocks.

Galactrix is the sequel to Puzzle Quest, a game which I'm still enjoying quite a bit. Actually, Puzzle Quest is one of the only games I'm still able to make time for since Lia's been born, since I can play it at lunchtime at work.

Galactrix is the sci-fi equivalent of Puzzle Quest's fantasy game. It's being developed as a PC game, but is going to be ported to the same platforms as Puzzle Quest (DS, PSP, and XBLA)

This one's going to include 2-4 player multiplayer and "support for downloadable content", which I can only imagine means XBLA content. I imagine that you'll capture spaceships instead of beasts and conquer planets instead of beseiging towns. I only hope that they do more than just slap a new faceplate on the same game. It does sound like they're going to incorporate trade, similarly to the Space Rangers games, so that should be an interesting plus. Check out the Galactrix website.

Bioshock seems to be the game to which everyone is looking forward. And while it's not at the top of my list personally, I never tried either of the old System Shock games, and so I don't know quite what I might be missing there. This one's releasing on August 21st, so I'll be able to try it out pretty soon. I just hope it's better than Prey was.

Spore has built up more hype than any other game I can think of. And with good reason - this looks like Will Wright's swansong. Spore does a number of things that no game has ever done before.

You play a race of creatures all the way from a single-cell life form, following their course of evolution as they develop civilization and eventually into outer space. You begin at the Tide Pool level, battling with and consuming other creatures. You then move onto land in the Creature Phase, evolving and learning. In the Tribal Phase, you now control an entire tribe of your creature. It sounds like this phase plays more like a RTS. The Civilization Phase sounds like something we'd expect from Will Wright, and it likely plays out much like his Civilization games, with the goal of conquering the planet. Lastly, in the Space Phase, you try to make your race dominate the universe.

I've heard that the universe of Spore will function much like that of Galactic Civilizations, where a race created by one played can be uploaded and become part of the communal universe, so if I venture into space, I may encounter your race of creatures. While this isn't quite a MMO, since there's no direct interaction between players, and since one player's actions don't directly affect others, it makes for some pretty cool and unique gameplay.

Spore has been pushed back a number of times, and we're currently expecting it sometime early in 2008. I've been trying to decide whether to get the Wii or PC version. I'll probably wait and read the reviews before deciding. You can check out the website at Spore.com

Half-Life 2, Episode 2 has been a long time coming. The biggest part of the delay has been the push to move the game onto the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 consoles, since they intend to bundle a number of games into a single package for console release. In addition to the new games: Half-Life 2 Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2, the console gamers will be getting a couple others that we PC gamers have been enjoying for a while now: the original Half-Life 2, and Half-Life 2 Episode 1.

And although Portal should be neat, I'm mainly looking forward to Episode 2, in which Alyx apparently enters some type of mortal peril, and we see some crazy mini-striders which I'm assuming are crab synths. Like episode 1, I plan to download this from Steam the minute it becomes available on October 9th and play through the whole thing in a day or two.

Fallout 3 should be an amazing game. At first, I'd been having mixed feelings about the game coming away from its turn-based roots, but then I read an article on Joystiq which states that "turn-based combat is possible using Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.), although once your action points are used up, you will revert to real-time combat until they charge up again". I'm not exactly sure how that will work, but it should be awesome.

Bethesda is building the game with the same engine used to run Oblivion, and I certainly sank enough hours into that game to show my feelings for it. If Bethesda allows for the same degree of user modification that it did with Oblivion, it will work hugely to the game's credit.

If the game becomes too much of a shooter, I think that will work against it. The only thing that kept Oblivion from being a shooter was the fact that missile weapons were limited to bows and spells, melee weapons being much more common. The only things that will save Fallout from becoming just another Oblivion is firstly, the well-developed SPECIAL system, and secondly Fallout's unique setting and sense of dark humor.

I hope they decide to ditch the conversation minigame from Oblivion. I'd even be happy if they got rid of the lockpicking minigame, although lockpicking has been part of Fallout back to the beginning. I'm not opposed to minigames, I just don't want to see stupid minigames like the conversation one or rehashed minigames like the lockpicking one. If they need a lockpicking minigame, I'd prefer that they use something closer to that in Thief or Hillsfar.

The addition of radiation, drugs, and perhaps vehicles will add a lot to the game, and I can only hope they'll enhance the game's stealth aspects too. Sneaking in Oblivion wasn't half as good as in real stealth games. I've also heard that they're going to allow location-specific damage, so you'll be able to shoot someone in the leg so that you can better run away from him. Nice. I also hope Fallout 3 improves on the horrible face models in Oblivion - even the faces in Fallout 2 were better. But if I get to smack a Super Mutant in the face with a power sledgehammar and watch it go flying, I'll be happy. Dare I hope for a proton axe?

Lastly, I don't know how they'd do it with the current engine, but I really hope they find a way to allow you to form a party of characters like in Fallout Tactics, a game I enjoyed more than most people did. They say they'll release Fallout 3 in time for Christmas '08, but I wouldn't be surprised if it gets pushed back.

The final, number one game on my list is Starcraft 2. We don't know exactly when Blizzard will be releasing it, but I'm looking forward to it more than any of these others, although Fallout 3 came close.

I wrote about it before, but it bears iteration. This game is going to be epic. I'm still playing its nine-year-old prequel. The new Starcraft will have not only better graphics, but some crazy new units like Stalkers (essentially marines with jetpacks) and some kind of giant Zerg worm that looks like something out of Dune. This is the game I'm looking forward to most. Unfortunately, it's also the one we'll likely have to wait longest for. Oh well.