Honorable Mentions

There's no real justification for the existence of this section other than the fact that several of our editors saw games that, for one reason or another, they thought really deserved some attention. We've allotted some space for them to discuss those poor, bypassed games here.

Andrew Park
Senior Editor

The Movies
Developer: Lionhead Studios
Publisher: Activision
Release Date: 2004

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Though I was able to see Lionhead's upcoming strategy game The Movies only in a theatrical presentation (and not in a firsthand demonstration on a computer screen), I have to admit that the game has made a great deal of progress since I first saw it in its earliest stages last year. Though I can't wait to play some of the very impressive-looking action games I was fortunate enough to see at the show, I'm also looking forward to playing The Movies, because it seems like it could be a very well-executed game that's lots of fun to play when it's complete.

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In the game, you play as the owner of a movie studio that opens in the year 1900 and stays open for business right on into the 21st century. You start with limited funds, and you'll also be limited by the social mores of the time--if your movie is released in the early 20th century, showing so much as a woman's ankle might make the movie too risqué and cause it to fail miserably at the box office. However, in addition to managing your studio, you'll want to be an innovator in the world of film, by featuring the world's first onscreen kiss, or the world's first talkie.

You'll be able to control most of the content in your movies with a simple slider that moves from left to right. For instance, in a fight scene, adjusting the slider will change how violent the fight will be--you'll want to play it safe in the early years of your studio, but since you're playing the role of an ambitious studio owner, you'll also want to be constantly pushing the boundaries of what you can and can't show on the big screen. The Movies has a lot of interesting ideas that seem to work just fine within the actual game (or at least, what I've seen of the actual game). I hope it turns out well.

Cold Winter
Developer: Swordfish Studios
Publisher: VU Games
Release Date: Q3 2004

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It was unfortunate that this ambitious console first-person shooter was hidden away in one of VU Games' private meeting rooms at E3, and even more unfortunate that Cold Winter didn't make our top games list. However, I still feel like the game deserves some attention, because of the surprising way it approaches its subject matter. If you've played many console first-person shooters, you'll know that a number of them are watered-down PC ports with a control scheme that was optimized for a mouse and keyboard, not for a game controller.

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Aside from the fact that Cold Winter's control scheme is being optimized for use with a console controller, the game will also have many of the features you'd expect from a cutting-edge PC shooter. Cold Winter's enemy soldiers will exhibit intelligent, squad-based AI that will impel your enemies to provide cover fire for each other as they advance on you, as well as automatically take cover behind any useful environmental objects, including tables that can be kicked over for that purpose. The game will feature full environmental physics for its various objects, such as piles of crates, baskets, and dangling ropes and chains, plus stencil-shaded shadows for both environmental objects and characters that will be animated in real time. Cold Winter will even have a location-based damage model that will let enemy soldiers continue to fight if you only graze their leg with a bullet (though they'll be limping as they go), but will drop them like a bad habit if you score a shot to the head. The game will be surprisingly gory--it will feature lots of blood and numerous death animations, and you'll even be able to use some weapons (like a sawed-off shotgun) to blast your enemies' body parts off.

Though none of these features might seem especially exciting if you're a veteran PC first-person shooter fan who has played all the latest games, these features definitely aren't commonly found in console shooters. You could come up with theories as to why: Maybe some game publishers prefer to cut costs by dumping an existing PC shooter onto a console platform, or maybe some game companies think that console game fans are too young for the graphic violence. However, Cold Winter might just prove that console first-person shooters can be as good as PC shooters on nearly all counts. I can't say I'm entirely thrilled at the thought, since I prefer my first-person shooters on the PC, but even I have to admit that this game has real potential.