S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Originally this game was to be released around the end of last year but it was one of a brace of shooters that scattered from the latterly announced HL2 release date like scousers from a jobs-fair. The concept behind sounds like a promising mesh between the wide open worlds of games like Morrowind with edge-of-the-seat action. Players will take control of a Stalker, one of a number of paramilitary individuals which make their living scavenging the irradiated wastelands around Chernobyl, much of which has been painstakingly recreated by the team from maps and even trips into the danger zone.

We did a rather long preview of this game many months ago. Unfortunately the title has been pushed back a couple of times now and word has gone rather quiet on its current state. The latest news is that it will miss its May release date, with some rather ominous sounding words maybe hinting that things aren't going too well for this ambitious title.

Close Combat: First to Fight (Xbox also)

In amongst all the conspiracies about which companies have benefited the most from the current war in Iraq, you never see the conspiracy theorists include software houses. Sure, Halliburton and KBR may have creamed billions of dollars off the US taxpayer but surely the number of shooters based in dusty environments with suspiciously dark-skinned enemies points to some sort of collusion between the software entertainment and the military industrial complex that is sometimes called the US government. Close Combat: First to Fight must be about the 82nd which drops the player into the same kind of towns that have been so beloved of CNN camera crews in the last few years. A quick trip to the game's website shows a bold level of gung-ho jingoism which may be enough to worry off non-American gamers from what is shaping up to be an exciting shooter.

Drawing close parallels to Full Spectrum Warrior, CC: FF will put gamers in tactical command of a four-man fire team. CC:FF will not pussy foot around with fictional locations, and while setting the in a Lebanon torn apart by Syrian interfering may have seemed like a safe bet back when development started, the unfortunate events of the last few days have placed this once-beautiful part of the world back on the list of potential warzones. CC: FF will take the realistic simulation approach to warfare and when the title says close combat, that's exactly what it means. Players will have to follow sound tactics if they are to get through the game's 22 missions. No single man charging in with a serrated knife between his teeth shenanigans here. You see, CC: FF is currently being used as a training tool for the US Marines. As such, you can expect to employ up-to-date methods of operation from today's armed forces along with all the noisy and heavy that is essential to any military venture, virtual or otherwise. Following a similar pattern to Rainbow Six and Full Spectrum Warrior, context sensitive icons will facilitate troop commands, with your squad members intelligently advancing under covering fire. But unlike FSW, all the action takes place in the first person, which, as long as a hemmed-in spatial awareness doesn't become a problem, should ramp up the tension levels to extreme proportions.

Your squad in CC: FF are not on their own either. They can call on back up from a range of different forces, from snipers to Cobra attack helicopters. You can also experience the co-operation in the side of the game, which will be accompanied into battle by the obligatory deathmatch mode. CC: FF promises to slow the pace right down, and with its reliance on following proper defined procedures and constant vigilance, it may not appeal to the more impatient FPS fan. But I'm already willing to bet that CC: FF will be an experience like no other when it eventually embarks next month.

Project Snowblind (Xbox + also)

Here's another shooter that hasn't been getting much notice in the press, even if its developers are the notable creators of the Legacy of Kain series, Crystal Dynamics. Originally intended to be an adventure in the dystopian future world of Deus Ex, Project Snowblind has been exiled into its own universe. But apart from disappointing a few Deus Ex fans who may have enjoyed shooting Tong in the face, the change should make little difference to the final game. Project Snowblind is still set in a future where the social order has crumbled completely. Playing as a surgically enhanced super-trooper by the name of Frost, players will quickly find themselves in charge of a small team of warriors, cut off from their commanders and struggling for survival in a range of hostile environments. The augmentations of Deus Ex have survived the transition as well, with such abilities as invisibility, an electrical storm and something which sounds suspiciously like bullet-time becoming available as play progresses.

There will be 11 missions spread across some unusual sounding levels, such as an opera house which has been converted into a prison. No doubt there will be plenty of sewers and underground passages to trudge through as well, with the appearance of an occasional vehicle giving you the opportunity to give your super-feet a bit of a rest. And while Project Snowblind is unlikely to set any benchmarks, the early code I played at Gamestars last September was compellingly playable. Your team members weren't a bunch of dunces and the gameworld had a strangely convincing feel to it. With any luck Project Snowblind will deliver the stripped down Deus Ex-shooter goods when it finally makes an appearance next month.

Now, obviously this isn't a complete list of 2005's shooters. Other contenders such as 2, Brothers in Arms, Dark Sector and Starship Troopers are all scheduled to make an appearance this year. Will there be a expansion pack to accompany the DOOM 3 one this year? Will an Unreal 3 engined-shooter make a surprise appearance before Santa's return? Will Forever finally... no, of course not. But 2005 has a healthy number of FPS titles in store, many of which are trying hard to inject something refreshing and invigorating into a genre which often feels in danger of descending in mindless repetition. So clean up that mouse, wipe down that mousepad and limber up those trigger fingers, 2005's going to be an action-packed year.

By Sam Gibson

Comments

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  1. cyo Unregistered 4 years ago

    where's the UT2005!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

  2. cyo Unregistered 4 years ago

    nevermind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!