Dharma Bum

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There was once a man who ate his own face. He said that it tasted of ham, and also human flesh. I do not need any damn segue! Here are some great games coming out in 2007 that don’t get mainstream attention quite enough.

MASS EFFECT

Hyped early in its development cycle as "Jack Bauer in space," Mass Effect is going to be a seventy hour RPG from the creators of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire, BioWare. While the setting is an homage to the sci-fi of the 80s, the story is fairly original.

Humanity has newly been accepted into a long established conglomerate of alien civilizations, and has launched itself into the space faring age. However, its timing could not be worse. Every fifty thousand years, a race of machines plunders the universe of all intelligent life that uses advanced technology, and Earth came onto the scene at the 49,999 mark. It is up to Commander Shepherd and his team to investigate a way to stop this threat, and along the way, he must decide which civilizations are worth saving, and which ones must be sacrificed for the greater good of the universe.

Commander Shepherd is not just another space marine, though. He also has access to "biotic" powers, a series of force-like abilities based on real life theoretical physics. The combat is a third person shooter focusing on either running and gunning, squad leadership, or tactical play that requires thorough knowledge of your enemies’ weaknesses and strengths, and a host of abilities to help take advantage of that information.

It is an RPG, but the level of depth in character development is not yet really known. We do know there is different gear and weapons that can be customized, the player character can be either male or female, and while Commander Shepherd will have a set voice, it can be manipulated by sound filters per the player’s whims. The developers are boasting that Mass Effect will have the most realistic human characters ever seen in a videogame to date, and that the environments explorable in the game will be both well detailed and massive.

Originally anticipated as a May release, Mass Effect is now speculated to be coming out some time in September of this year.

BIOSHOCK

Imagine a world where the painter is free from the censor, capitalism is not hindered by the stupid and lazy, and the scientist does not have to bow to the superfluous morality of the religious man. Truly, it would be a utopia – until you introduce the actual human element. Bioshock explores the depravity and hopelessness of severing academia from the rest of society in the hopes of creating a perfect world, and how the arrogance of the intellectual can be deadly.

A nameless character arrives after the collapse of a civilization like that described above, only to find nothing but ruins. He must find a way to either escape the slowly flooding underwater paradise gone horribly wrong, or assimilate into becoming another one of the depraved souls trapped by their own madness and dangerous addiction to "Adam," the key to surviving in this mad world.

Adam is a concentrated biotic injection that alters its users genetic code, allowing superhuman abilities to be at their disposal. Originally conceived as a means to escape aging, being overweight, ugly, having the wrong hair color or even the wrong gender, Adam rapidly gained popularity due to its addictive nature. Eventually, it became currency, and when people started using it for violent means, it led to the collapse of the Godless society that created it.

Besides the deep social commentary on the flaws in Ayn Rand’s philosophies, Bioshock will also boast some of the most advanced artificial intelligence ever seen. Relationships between enemies will not be scripted, but rather, occur naturally due to what is coded in their disposition by the programmers. The Big Daddy and the Little Sister, for example, have a symbiotic relationship.

Little Sisters are the only characters in the game capable of harvesting adam from dead bodies, and they share that adam with the Big Daddies – large, well armored men who violently and desperately protect the Little Sisters. If you want to harvest Adam in order to survive, you either have to kill a Little Sister, or become a Big Daddy by defending the Little Sister from an attacker.

Bioshock is speculated to be releasing in August, with a slim chance we’ll see it in July.

Indiana Jones 2007/Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Everyone on the face of the planet is familiar with these two George Lucas franchises, but what is perhaps even more interesting than being able to play as a Jedi or as a hobo archaeologist, is the A.I. system being experimented with in these titles. Most games, at this point in development, have moved passed death animations, and into the age of the ragdoll. When an enemy loses its hit points, it then falls over in a very realistic, very uninteresting way. These two titles are handling damage to character models in a different way.

When a character takes damage, they will now know to cradle their wound in a realistic way, or if they’re pushed off an edge, they’ll try to grab an edge and hold on for dear life, they’ll know where cover is and how to use it effectively – and all of that is coded into the character model. The technology is called "Euphoria," and also comes with a particle physics engine that allows realistic environmental damage. Going beyond shattering glass, wood will now splinter, and metal will dent, all based on real life physics algorithms. This is a huge step forward for the game industry, and may perhaps be the future of character models in all games.

Imagine this technology in a world where you can pick up a stormtrooper and slam him into the wall using the force, or fling him through the branches of some trees on Kashyyk, or just let him flail off into the cold depths of the voice of space. Or with Indiana Jones – fights on a rickety bridge, on a moving vehicle, or at the edge of a tall temple will take on all new dangers. Boulders will no longer have the fatal flaw of clipping errors – they’ll destroy rock walls, trees, and ancient traps in the hopes of crushing your PhD’d ass.

Overlord

Admit it: At some point in your life, you wanted to be Sauron. Well, this game should satisfy anyone’s inner drive to be the leader of a destructive army of goblins. As the Overlord, it is the player’s task to manage a group of loyal and over zealous group of vicious, yet comedic, underlings, while you start your reign of terror to conquer all the land that you survey.

When your reputation as either a vicious tyrant or a just ruler grows, your loyal subjects will treat you with the respect you deserve. The goblins will bring you gifts of what they pillaged in order to gain your favor, while farmers will offer you their busty virgin daughters in order to gain your mercy.

Nothing new is being done with this game that anyone knows about, but judging from screen shots, it looks like it will be a fun twist on the Fable franchise.

TimeShift

A new spin on the first person shooter, TimeShift incorporates elements of time manipulation and puzzle solving into the old standard of killing people with guns. Starring Dennis Quaid and Michael Ironside, this game was delayed from last year due to an expansion in budget.

The player will have the ability to speed up, slow down and stop time, making for some very interesting Matrix like moments, as well as some very interesting puzzles. One that was described by the developer involved blowing an armored door open with a rocket to escape a group of advancing enemies, passing through the door, and then reversing time to before the rocket was launched. With that, you and your pursuers are suddenly seperated by six inches of reinforced steel. There is a lot of smart stuff that can happen with this game, and with a heavy hitting cast of highly competent actors, it also has the capacity to be a great sci-fi drama.