The other upcoming Xbox games... (P1)

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Look for part two of this Xbox World 360 feature shortly...

A

Kicking things off is Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, the MMORPG from Funcom which sees you looking for Conan, rather than playing as him. Forget THQ's recent super-bloody Conan game, this adaption of Robert E Howard's beefcake sword-'n'-sex epic is a slow-burning adventure along the lines of Elder Scrolls - except online.

Air Combat, the latest offering from Ubi's cash-spewing Tom Clancy money fountain, sees you taking to the skies to blietzkrig Johnny Foreigner in a hi-tech rip-off of Ace Combat. Got to admit, doesn't float our boat like Recon and Rainbow, but given Ubi's recent track record, it should rock. As will Aliens, no doubt, the killer two-game acid attack from developers Gearbox and Obsidian. We covered these last ish, but it's worth reiterating: one's an FPS (Gearbox) and one's an RPG (Obsidian) and unless something goes very wrong they will ROCK YOUR FREAKING SOCKS CLEAN OFF.

We spilled Alone in the Dark's guts in our last issue of the magazine, but if you weren't around, rest assured you missed out on seeing one of 2008's darkest horses in full-on dazzle-action. Sorry about that. Got to admit, we haven't got a clue where APB (that's All Points Bulletin) has gone. Why should you care? It's an online version of cops 'n' robbers, and it's being co-developed by Crackdown creators Real Time Worlds. Oh yes. Rounding off the A's is Assassin's Creed 2, which you'll know lots about already if you've been watching us send shockwaves through the internet on xbowxworld.co.uk.

B

Remember Rare? They used to be good once. Will Banjo-Kazooie be a real return to form? Currently unclear, given the fact they've shown nothing since announcing it almost two years ago. Either way, you'll get to find out for sure in November. Next up: a succession of 'fighties'. First, Battlefield: Bad Company, which developers DICE promise will up the ante on the good online, rubbish offline Battlefield: Modern Combat; second, Battlestations Midway 2, the sequel to 2006's rather ace sea-and-air-based combat sim, which promises bigger play areas and better online modes; third, er, Beautiful Katamari, the weird, roll-a-ball-of-stuff puzzle hybrid, which actually has no fighting in it all, but we had to include here in the interests of maintaining alphabetical continuity; four, Bionic Commando, Capcom's Lost Planet-ish update of their retro classic; five, Black 2, Criterion's next gen sequel, which hasn't been announced despite the fact that it is definitely coming... just maybe not until 2009; and six, The Bourne Conspiracy which includes both high octane face-punchery and serious question marks over how much of the game you actually control, thanks to cinematic context-sensitive fighting sequences.

We'll see for sure when we fly out to developers High Moon in the next issue. Also, Rockstar return to 360 in early Spring, not with GTA IV, but with Bully: Scholarship Edition, which is a jazzed-up remake of the fantastic PS2 school sim. In typical Rockstar style, few details have emerged as to what differentiates the new version from its last gen brother, but they told us on the blower this month that we'll know more... soon. The last of the B's is Brutal Legend, Tim 'Monkey Island' Shafer's freeform heavy metal adventure that sees you filling the boots of a digital Jack Black and hacking the ass off legions of skull-faced characters who look like they came straight from an Iron Maiden record sleeve. Could be the most original game of the year. Or could be a mess. We'll se for sure in November.

C

Apart from Civilization Revolution, Sid Meier's created-for-console version of his PC classic, the C's are dominated by bullet-spewing, fist-mashing violence: Chronicles of Riddick 2 has gone back to the drawing board at The Darkness developers Starbreeze, and will no longer be the original with a bolted-on multiplayer, but a fully-blown sequel. Excited? You should be. The first game was incredible. Cipher Complex - although lumbered with a guff story about private military corporations - has an innovative stealth system which is a bit like Metal Gear Solid nailed to Ninja Gaiden. Big influences, then; the question is, can developers Edge of Reality pull it off? Two final games which should definitely come up rosy: Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Monolith's brutal sequel to their massively under-rated 360 launch game, and Crysis, the PC super-shooter that will get a console version this year - despite continued toing and froing from developers Crytek.

D

The Darkness 2. Excited? Someone at publisher Top Cow certainly is because they let slip that Starbreeze are hard at work on a sequel to their short, but excellent, comic book shooter. Crimson Skies, a launch game on the original Xbox, was a terrific slice of air combat that sold virtually nothing. Its spiritual successor Dark Void will be hoping to deliver the same airborne thrills 'n' spills, but with fewer planes, more aliens and a main hero who thinks goggles are acceptable combat wear. Acceptable combat wear is likely to include miniscule bikinis and giant jiggling jugs in Dead or Alive 5 - this time round, though, Itagaki's going to have some serious competition from Namco's Soul Calibur 4.

EA's Dead Space is all about FREAKING GREAT SPACE ALIENS that get INSIDE YOUR BODY and MUTATE. It sounds like The Thing, but apparently EA reckon it's more like Event Horizon. Let's hope it's not also like Army of Two. Also intergalatic-themed is Destroy All Humans 3, a threequel in a series that's gradually become increasingly less good. Can Path of the Furon change things? We're going to go with doubtful. Sorry. PC game Deus Ex 2, or Invisible War as it was actually called, was one of the best games ever, so news of Deus Ex 3 is officially BRILLIANT... although game design genius Warren Spector has nothing to do with it this time - a bit worrying.

Devil May Cry 4 will only be about a month or so away from release by the time you read this - and judging by what we've played, seen and digested of it so far, it's going to be a Grade A wick-a-thon. Not sure you can say the same about Dirty Harry, although we're basing that on knowing nothing about the game, other than it's in development. We've had a few visions of it, though: Third-person! Shooting! Clunky camera! The phrase "Do you feel lucky, punk?" repeated a lot.

E

The big question with Elveon is whether it's the new Elder Scrolls or the new Two Worlds. Set in a world populated entirely by elves, and featuring characters who only speak elvish, we've seen it in action and have to say it's fast-moving and mighty pretty - but until we get more than just the ten minutes on it we're not going to pretend Bethesda should be worried.

Id's Enemy Territory: Quake Wars debuted on PC towards the end of last year and was... "worth about 75%" according to Xbox World writer Mike, who played it to hell and back on his beige box. It's unlikely to get any significant overhaul on 360, though with no release date set as yet, you never know. Major problem for the game on PC: everyone is playing Team Fortress 2. Major problem for it on 360: everyone will still be playing Halo 3.

F

Fable 2, in many ways, is like Remedy's Alan Wake: a lot of nothing since the time it was first announced. Given that it's from Lionhead, though, it's safe to assume it'll probably be a pretty good RPG with some neat twists and some small but significant innovations - and the fact that big cheese Peter Molyneaux has been keeping (relatively) tight-lipped about the game can only be a good thing. Far Cry 2? It's on 360 and everyone in the world knows it. Set in deepest Africa, it looks impressive in the first shots; we're hoping you're given a bit more of a licence to explore the world this time round, though.

Another shooter-sequel that's unconfirmed but definitely coming is F.E.A.R. 2 - not to be confused with F.E.A.R. developers Monolith's 'other' F.E.A.R. 2, Project Origin. (They lost the licence when they stepped out from under the Vivendi umbrella.) F.E.A.R. 2 will be developed by another studio, and will probably not be as good as the FPS Monolith turn out - but if they can jazz up the visuals and include the same quality AI (and gore) as the first, Vivendi's new choice of coders will still have a game that'll tick boxes.

Like your wheels? Like your wheels to turn around really fast? Then Flatout 4 could be just the ticket. It's not officially announced - but it's definitely on the way from Bugbear. Fracture, the LucasArts shooter which allows you to reshape the game environment thanks to hardware-shaking incredi-physics, will - we fear - be only an average shooter with a killer gimmick and startling tech, while Frontline: Fuels of War doesn't have either a killer gimmick or startling tech, but will probably be a more refined Battlefield-style experience. Both are hoping to offer murderously good online modes, but while Frontline looked slick and fun when we saw it in September, Fracture's 16-player enviro-chaos gets points for ambition.

G

One name lights up the G's: Gears of War 2. As detailed in last issue's Secret Games feature, this will at the very least, be announced this year, especially in light of Micro-soft's ever-so-slightly disappointing 2008 first-party release schedule. Epic will have been working on this since the original Gears shipped - which means they've got over a year of prep done already.

Golden Axe, Sega's next gen update of the classic hack-'n'-slasher is back for some fun this year, looking pretty snazzy in 360-vision, as are the boys from Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 3, which hasn't been announced yet, but definitely will be by Ubisoft very, very soon. Then there's Guilty Gear Overture - but fans of the excellent Dreamcast, PS2 and Wii beat-'em-up shouldn't get too excited; Overture is a Dynasty Warriors clone. Sigh. Also worth keeping an eye out is Gun 2, which will hopefully be an improvement over the bland original.

H

Two games you'd either totally forgotten, or never knew existed in the first place: one, crazy-ass party game Hail to the Chimp, from Wideload, developers of Stubbs the Zombie and - some of them, at least - the original Halo; and two, Harker, The Collective's take on Dracula, which turns blubbering diary writer Jonathan Harker into a buffed-up vampire killer. Could be fun.

Free Radical and Ubisoft may have pulled the 360 version of Haze, but it'll definitely be back before the end of the year - that's how multi-format specialists Ubi roll these days. Beset by delays on PS3, our PlayStation-playing mates across the office tell us the latest version is slick and fun... but maybe not the world-beater it's been heavily talked up as being.

Licences alert! Gearbox are busy prepping a virtual version of De Niro-Pacino-Mann celluloid cracker Heat, while Konami are still grinding away on Hellboy, just as they were last year, and the year before that. The reason for the delay? It could be the fact that coders Krome Studios spent a year trying to come up with a subtitle and opted for... Science of Evil. Or, it could be that the game is being shunted back to better coincide with the film sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, due in July. Either way, we're more stoked about a digital version of Heroes, which Ubisoft have added to their 'Big TV Shows' roster, which also includes Lost. If it's not a third-person action adventure we'll scoop our brains out Sylar-style.

Yeah, okay, so things have gone a bit awry on the alphabetical front, as we zip back to cover Hei$t, Codemasters' 70s bank robbery sim, and Hellgate, the PC hottie that rumours continue to suggest we will get in 2008. As long as it's not as MASSIVELY BROKEN as Hellgate London, a game that required a patch from day one to plug its many and varied holes. Hitman 5! We covered this last issue, but IO are on the verge of announcing it as their next game, and gives them an early chance to redeem themselves after Kane & Lynch.

Another game definitely coming but caught in a tidal wave of Grade A delayage is Huxley, the MMORPG-cum-FPS from Korean developers Webzen. It looks slick enough, if a little generic - but the wall-to-wall silence that's marked its development over the past year is worrying. Lastly, Hydrophobia, the technical marvel from Manc outfit Blade is also on its way this year. Incredible and realistic water effects are its big selling point, and with a giant cruise liner as its world and a Lara-like adventurer as its protagonist, the big question is whether the World Championship Snooker coders can bring it all together.

I

Indiana Jones is back in 2008 with the tentatively titled, er, Indiana Jones. All LucasArts have dealt out so far is some tech demos set atop San Franciscan trams, but they'd be doughtnuts not to tie it into next summer's movie return, Indiana Jones and the (breathe) Kingdom of the (breathe) Crystal Skull. Like your gaming a little more sedate? Infinite Undiscovery, bearer of the worst title in gaming since Risky Woods, is a sprawling RPG from Star Ocean developers Tri-Ace, and should be blinding. Lastly, there's Iron Man from Sega (who have also bagged the Hulk, Captain America and Thor licences). We've yet to see it in action, but early shots suggest it's remaining true to the spirit of the film, due this summer.

J

After stealing the rights from EA, Activision promised to do something special with the James Bond licence... but then handed development duties to Spider-Man coders Treyarch. Are we being unfair? Yeah, probably - but why not give it to Infinity Ward, and restore 007's gaming pride with an FPS to rival the classic GoldenEye? Ah well. At least the 70% specialists at the helm can't turn out the sort of 007-shaped dross EA were serving up... can they?

The mere mention of Jason and the Argonauts is enough to have us wistfully wishing for Christmas back, but Codemasters' game of the classic Greek tale isn't likely to draw too heavily on the brilliant film. Which, frankly, is ABSURD. Equally absurd was the walk animation Rico was lumbered with in the first Just Cause. Fortunately, sequel Just Cause 2 has rebuilt his animations from scratch, which - thankfully - means no buttock-squeezing mincery. If Avalanche can fill the world with, well, anything (as opposed to the first game's vast swathes of nothing to do), it could be a standout open-world game in 2008.

Xbox World 360