Andrew Park Senior Editor	Recent Favorites: Unreal Tournament 2003, No One Lives Forever 2, Road to Rome, Raven Shield, Praetorians We May Never See These Games (and Are Worse Off for It): Master of Magic sequel, Planescape: Torment sequel, Jagged Alliance 3

Where Are They Now?

It's that time of the year again--the time when every single one of GameSpot's generally mild-mannered editors begins to turn into a frightened, crazed lunatic over the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo in May. Scientists say that dogs and bees can smell fear. If you brought a forensic team of highly trained police dogs and police bees into the GameSpot offices, they'd probably find some of that, along with plenty of stress, dread, and a bit of panic. By the time you read this, Ricardo and the GameSpot Live crew, especially Ryan Mac Donald and Dave Toole, will have parted with a great quantity of blood, sweat, and adrenaline putting together an incredibly cool, entirely new, pre-E3 DVD video feature that you'll probably hear more about later. Since I'm responsible for GameSpot's PC game coverage, I've been trying to cover the PC side of things, as well as book E3 appointments alongside Ricardo (though as in so many other cases, he's outpacing me easily), and it's been...interesting, to say the least.

Mr. Barcia, if you're reading this: You know what to do.

It's very easy to get caught up in all the exciting new games that are coming out in the near future because a lot of them are extremely cool, and it's also easy to forget some of the great games of the past that we'll probably never see again in any kind of new form. Take the role-playing game I'm obligated to refer to every so often, Planescape: Torment. This remarkable game clearly set out to be very, very different from most conventional fantasy RPGs, and it succeeded. In fact, despite its various flaws, the game had a very unusual structure that let you acquire godlike abilities (such as incredible strength or dexterity) over the course of your adventure, and it also let you swap quickly between three different character professions, all while you unraveled a fascinating story about the game's mysterious hero. While the game's conclusion didn't leave much room for a sequel, it did, because of its unusual structure, leave room for a prequel, or some sort of continuation of the game's story in some direction. Unfortunately, several of the game's original developers and writers were scattered to the winds in 2001, and considering how the Dungeons & Dragons license has since been shopped around and how the Planescape universe is no longer officially supported by publisher Wizards of the Coast with new sourcebooks, there seems to be no chance of any kind of Planescape: Torment follow-up.

A damn fine game. Gone but not forgotten.

Aside from being really depressing, this column of mine was supposed to have a point to make somewhere--probably that we shouldn't forget great games like these, even though we're constantly faced with new and upcoming ones that can seem at least as exciting. I'll also say that I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of new faces at E3, but I wouldn't mind seeing some old ones, too.