Spotlight On - King's Bounty, Death to Spies 3, Off-Road Drive, Theater of War, Captain Blood, Star Wolves 3, and Men of

Captain Blood

Captain Blood is the long-in-development action adventure game that seems to be 1C's PC and Xbox 360 answer to Sony's God of War series. Even though the game has a bright, colorful look to it, it's exceedingly gory--the demonstration video we watched showed the good cap'n gouging out eyeballs, slicing off legs and heads, and grabbing his scurvy pirate enemies by the throat and emptying out the chambers of a musket point-blank into their faces. The demonstration level we watched showed a seemingly younger, slimmer version of our hero with a bandanna tied around his head and a sword blade tied to his wrist, which gave him a distinct resemblance to Ubisoft's more recent versions of the Prince of Persia.

The action sequence we saw took place on the deck of a pirate ship as waves of pirates attacked the captain and were sliced to bits using various button combinations, collapsing in a heap and leaving behind a pile of coins that can presumably be spent elsewhere. The battle climaxed in a boss fight with a giant, thuggish pirate who clambered up from belowdecks and attempted to squash us flat with a huge warhammer. The brute was immune to a frontal attack, so we had to drop his guard by picking up and hurling lit powder kegs at him; each keg would explode and cause him to drop his guard and let us hack away at him. Every so often, a new context-sensitive option would become available in battle--the ropes near the ship's sail rigging would glimmer, indicating that we could use them. By running up to the ropes and pressing the appropriate context button, we triggered a quick-time event that caused the captain to make a daring swing on the ropes toward the brute, kicking him in the face on his way there. While swinging, the pirate boss counterattacked by hurling cutlasses at us. We avoided them by pressing the proper Xbox 360 controller button at the correct time, which caused the dashing young captain to snatch the blade out of thin air and hurl it back. Captain Blood will ship later this year.

Death to Spies 3

Projected release date: Q4 2010
Genre: Action Adventure, Stealth
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360
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Death to Spies 3 is, as the name suggests, the third game in the Death to Spies stealth action series. The new game has a much more modern graphical look reminiscent of recent third-person action games like Splinter Cell: Conviction and Resident Evil 5 with a much-closer camera pulled in tighter on your character. Unlike the previous games, which took place during World War II, Death to Spies takes place during the Cold War era, specifically the early 1960s, and puts you in the role of a Russian spy who must infiltrate various hotspots in the US, Europe, and Cuba.

The demonstration level we played took place in an American police precinct, where a Russian traitor was being held on the third floor. We started off at the entrance, where cops and various civilian employees treated us civilly enough, but blocked off the entrance to the second floor, which was for authorized personnel only. Our mission was to first use a silent takedown on a police officer out of sight of anyone else and then steal his uniform, dispose of the body, and head upstairs. Pretty much any significant action you make in the game will take place with a context-sensitive button press--you have the option to press a button to immediately open any door you come across, or alternately, to first press a button to peek through the keyhole, for instance. While we were able to finally locate a lone cop in an interrogation room and take him down by pressing Y on the Xbox 360 controller and then press B to pick up the body and lug it away, the door suddenly opened, and a couple more cops caught us in the act and immediately opened fire. We weren't able to dump the body and reach for our gun fast enough and got gunned down. 1C has apparently heard the feedback from some players about the previous games in the series being too difficult and has adjusted the third game's difficulty somewhat, but it'll still be a challenge. The game will launch on the PC and the Xbox 360 later this year.

Men of War: Assault Squad

Projected release date: Q3 2010
Genre: Strategy, Real-Time Tactical
Platform: PC
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Assault Squad is one of 1C's new Men of War games, and unlike the previous games in the series, it will be much more of a skirmish/multiplayer game than a full-on single-player campaign odyssey. Like the previous Men of War games, Assault Squad will be a tactical strategy game in which you'll control a squad of infantry soldiers who start their mission fully equipped with various weapons, ammo, medkits, and grenades (rather than mining gold and building a base to supply yourself). Assault Squad's multiplayer will support up to 16 players and will let you choose different hero characters with different abilities and statistics.

The single-player skirmish we played took place at the Battle of Carentan in Normandy, France, and required our team of American soldiers to clear a path for the Allies into enemy-occupied territory. Just like in the previous Men of War games, we were able to band-select our troops and give them group orders, as well as give individual orders to single units, and select specific move orders to automatically acquire cover in the world behind derelict vehicles, burned-out houses, and other environmental objects. The challenging mission started us off at the southern perimeter of the level and required us to cut through close to a dozen enemy encampments, each one more deeply entrenched than the last (some with mounted machine guns, to boot). Assault Squad seems like it will be the game for hardcore Men of War fans looking for challenging missions and head-to-head play online. The game is scheduled for release this fall.

Men of War: Vietnam

Projected release date: Q3 2010
Genre: Strategy, Real-Time Tactical
Platform: PC
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And while Assault Squad will be the skirmish/multiplayer game for skirmish/multiplayer fans, Men of War: Vietnam will be the next game for single-player campaign enthusiasts and will take place, as the name suggests, in the Vietnam War. This new game will have two lengthy single-player campaigns told from both sides of the war (the American army and the Viet Cong) and will feature historically authentic weaponry and armor, as well as new jungle terrain maps re-creating historical battles at key locations, such as the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Mekong Delta.

The brief demonstration level we played took place in a North Vietnamese jungle and tasked us with clearing the area of hostile threats. While our soldiers were as responsive to our real-time strategy-style orders as in any Men of War game, we noticed that in some cases, they automatically took a prone stance in high grass and foliage--which makes sense, since this new kind of light cover obscures more than it protects from incoming fire. We moved our squad, which included assault troops, a heavy gunner with a tripod-mounted M-60, and a sniper, along the riverbank to make contact with what appeared to be a small group of peaceful farmers digging ditches with mortar-looking things peeking out of them (most likely the rare and endangered mortar plant, we figured)…purely for farming purposes, of course. It was only when we brought in our troops for a closer look and the farmers all pulled out their AK-47s and opened fire on us that we started to suspect that they might have an ulterior motive. After a frantic, close-quarters battle around the mortar pits, we pacified the guerrilla warriors and escaped with the entire squad intact, but wounded. Jungle warfare will definitely add a new twist to the Men of War series, since it can be difficult to key in to small squads of enemies in the brush, particularly when they're fanning out (and that's despite the game's zoomed-out overhead view). Men of War: Vietnam will be out this fall.

Theater of War 2: Korea

Projected release date: Q4 2010
Genre: Strategy, Real-Time
Platform: PC
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The Theater of War real-time tactical series returns for a new engagement based on the Korean War that took place during the 1950s. The game will feature two campaigns told from the perspectives of either the American forces or the North Korean military and will take place on large-scale battlefields between armies of infantry, light vehicles, tanks, and artillery.

The demonstration level we played took place in the Gangwondo-pukto province, and we played as the North Korean forces. Prior to starting the contest, we were sent to an army loadout screen that lets you choose your troops and even outfit each squad with specific weapons, ammo types, and other items, and you can also choose what type of forces to bring in as reinforcements to call in later in the battle. Once we chose our loadout, we were able to prepare for battle with a deliberation phase that let us place our various infantry, vehicles, and cannon within a certain, limited range of our starting area. After carting our artillery up atop the nearest hill to maximize our firing range and line of sight, and placing our infantry in forested cover to ambush our foes, we began the battle, which started against a small force of US troops with a few infantry companies and a few tanks, which we blasted to smithereens with some concentrated artillery fire and mopped up with our tanks. Theater of War 2: Korea will be released at the end of the year.

Star Wolves 3: Ashes of Victory

Projected release date: 2010
Genre: Sci-Fi Strategy/Role-Playing
Platform: PC
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Star Wolves 3: Ashes of Victory will be the next addition to the Star Wolves sci-fi strategy/role-playing series. This stand-alone expansion will feature some 110 new star systems to explore, offering what 1C estimates to be close to 80 hours of new gameplay. In the game, you'll play as a lone mercenary in control of a mothership that not only can be upgraded with various types of weapons and shielding, but also houses up to six different fighter ships, each of which can be outfitted with different weapon and armor systems and piloted by a different space jockey with different skills and specializations.

Though you start the game with a single character who is a pilot with his own skills (and can gain experience levels to unlock skills along a massive, four-way skill tree that includes piloting, gunner skills, missile usage, and miscellaneous ship systems), you can eventually recruit a whole squadron of mercs, each with its own fighter ship and unique skills and specializations. Combat won't require any active piloting--instead, victory will come from smart, strategic choices of each fighter's weapon and defense systems before stepping into battle. Once you've engaged the enemy, you can simply click to select your fighters and assign them targets, similar to giving move and attack orders in a traditional real-time strategy game. You'll also start the game more or less in neutral standing with the game's many factions, though after performing some of the game's many missions, your standing with them will change over time--some will be more friendly, and others will become hostile. Star Wolves 3: Ashes of Victory will be released later this year.

Off-Road Drive

Projected release date: Q4 2010
Genre: Driving, Off-Road
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360
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The Unreal Engine 3-powered Off-Road Drive is 1C's entry into console-style off-road racing games. The game lets you race on various off-road tracks with various course hazards, such as steep-grade hills, mud patches, pools of deep water, and ground that crumbles beneath your wheels. The developer has attempted to make the world seem extremely realistic by causing what 1C describes as permanent deformation to the track area once you pass over it--should you cut deep lines through a mud patch, they'll be there on your next lap for you to deal with.

We took an early version of the Xbox 360 game for a test-drive. The camera is zoomed in pretty closely on your vehicle, so you don't have a great deal of forward or peripheral vision. In addition, the track we raced on twisted and turned very tightly, so despite the fact that the speed and braking seemed pretty forgiving, we were never able to just continuously floor it for fear of tripping up over constantly varying terrain grades (which may eventually cause your car to flip, at which point you must wait a moment and then restart at your previous checkpoint, usually sacrificing your place in the race). As much as we might have wanted to lean on the right trigger button to keep the pedal to the metal, at various turns we dealt with hazards like deep water and crumbling grades, which required us to tap the B button to switch to low gear. We also dealt with deep mud patches, which occasionally required us to block our vehicle's axis differentials by pressing right on the D pad and tapping the B button to torque our way out of a jam, though when you get absolutely stuck, you can use a winch to pull yourself out. Off-Road Drive will ship out at the end of this year.