GEOFFREY MORRISON BLOG

Saw a lot of cool games today, and several were total surprises.

NCSoft has several games that are going to have their basic gameplay free of charge. As in, you can play the game with a large amount of the content totally free. Some content they will eventually charge for. They’re not sure yet what they will be charging for, but for example the fantasy MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) Dungeon Runners may have areas that are only available if you pay a certain amount (my assumption, not something they actually verified).
Also initially free was the 3rd person shooter/fighting game

Exteel that looked pretty impressive.

You may recognize the name NCSoft, as they are the publishers of the MMORPG Guild Wars that differs from most games in its genre as once you buy the game, there is no monthly fee. I hadn’t paid much attention to this game, but the graphics (on a 16x9 flat panel no less) were very impressive. The designer says that he’s addicted to playing games on his new HDTV RPTV. As he should be…

Lastly was a game called Tabula Rasa. It is another MMO, but it is also a first person shooter. To my knowledge this hasn’t been done since Planetside, a decent game itself. The graphics are amazing. Now that I've seen it, I can't wait for it.

Bethesda is the developer that has the Star Trek license, and they have two games coming out. Star Trek Tactical Assault is for PSP, and while I’m not a huge portable gamer, this looked pretty cool. It is similar (though there is no connection), to Star Trek Legacy, the other game they're working on, in that they both offer ship-to-ship combat (like the mostly mediocre Star Trek: Starfleet Academy). Legacy toes the line between the action of a space flight sim and the tactical aspect of having a full starship to deal with (including directing power to shields or to engines). In fact, you can have up to four ships in your fleet and jump between them, give them orders and so on. Historically Star Trek has had some abysmal games based on its license, but Legacy looks to be stepping away from that.

They also had a Classic Gaming display with working Ataris, Apple IIe, and arcade classics like Space Invaders, Tron, and Pole Position.

EA had three amazing titles that I’ll have to talk about tomorrow, as their server seems to be down and I can’t get any screenshots.

Pics and screen shots for everything I mentioned can be found in the Galleries