Spotlight On - Legends of Pegasus, Airline Tycoon 2, and Global Ops: Commando Libya

Legends of Pegasus

Freshman game developer Novacore Studios is hard at work on Legends of Pegasus, an upcoming space strategy game whose colonization and space combat won't be entirely unlike those of Stardock's Sins of a Solar Empire. The game will include three playable races, including the humans, the X'or (a race of hostile aliens), and a third, unannounced race, and it will apparently have a dozen political factions with which you'll interact in the game's mission-based single-player campaign. In the campaign's story, you'll play as the commander of a starship fleet--in fact, humanity's final starship fleet, locked in a desperate battle to save Earth from alien invaders. However, just as your final battle is about to begin, a wormhole opens in space, dragging the fleet light-years away to an unknown sector of the universe, and so, like the fleet from Battlestar Galactica, your ships must eventually find their way home. However, they'll run into plenty of skirmish action on their way back and will also be able to colonize new worlds to harvest planetary resources and even set up trade routes by installing improvements into color-coded slots on terra firma on, and in orbit around, each new planet you find. And you'll of course be able to put your harvested resources to work in the form of research into new developments for your fleet. The game will also have a full ship customization system that lets you outfit designated hardpoints on each of your ships with various improvements, such as laser, torpedo, and plasma-class weaponry that can then be upgraded. And while exploration, economic development, and research will be turn-based, the game's combat system will take place in real time and in full 3D with full Z-axis combat. The game will let you play as any of the three races in multiplayer, but its single-player game is being built as an accessible experience with a great deal of built-in instruction and feedback in the form of tooltip explanations.

Airline Tycoon 2

Projected release date: October 11, 2011
Genre: Strategy, Management
Platform: PC
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Airline Tycoon 2 is the long, long, long-awaited sequel to the first management strategy game, and at long last, legions of Airline Tycoon fans will once again know the joy of running their own virtual airway. This sequel lets you choose one of four different playable characters who have specific strengths and weaknesses (such as finance, airplane design, and general management skills), and then stride out into the airport lobby to begin the joyous task of building up a successful airline by hiring flight crews, choosing air routes, and, best of all, building and customizing passenger planes. Planes come in different shapes and sizes (from smaller, luxury jets to large commercial liners) and can be outfitted with different types of seating, onboard storage compartments, and even decorative elements such as different types of signage to indicate the ever-important passenger restrooms. Plane parts vary in size and price, and while expensive parts are generally better, they may also break down more easily and require more maintenance. Similarly, experienced and skilled pilots and attendants will generally provide a better customer experience, but will cost a great deal more to hire and retain. You'll be able to make these monumental decisions throughout the course of the single-player campaign, as well as in the game's open-ended sandbox mode.

Global Ops: Commando Libya

Projected release date: 2012
Genre: Third-Person Shooter, Military
Platform: PC
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Global Ops: Commando Libya has an eyebrow-raising title, but we're assured that the game isn't about suppressing any uprisings. Instead, the game's story involves a terrorist threat posed by a fictitious faction that has taken up in the North African nation, and your role is as an American special forces soldier who has come to hunt down the terrorists, chew gum, and discover that he's all out of gum. The Unreal-engine powered game will have a full single-player campaign with nine missions that take place in Greenland, Europe, and eventually Libya. Also, you can adhere to cover and blind-fire your weapon from over or around cover--important tactics you've probably seen in modern third-person shooters. But don't let the real-world locations or realistic tactics fool you. This is going to be an over-the-top action game that doesn't take itself too seriously, though it will have a multiplayer mode reminiscent of the classic multiplayer shooter Counter-Strike, in which a team of terrorists square off against a team of counterterrorists.