Here's the second selection of games worth looking out for in 2008, but which haven't featured in every single preview feature. Watch out, there's a mobile game in here!
The Agency (Sony Online Entertainment, PC, PS3) Sony's massively-multiplayer espionage thriller has players joining either the UNITE spies or ParaGON mercenaries as they travel the globe getting involved in assassination plots, drug smuggling and all sorts of covert jiggery-pokery. Characters are highly customisable and rank up during play, gaining more influence over the world as they progress. You can also recruit NPCs named Operatives to gather intelligence - and sports cars - for you. It's a seductive premise and an interesting attempt to claw the MMORPG away from standard fantasy and sci-fi tropes.
Left 4 Dead (Turtle Rock/Valve, PC, Xbox 360) A couple of years ago Capcom promised us tense multiplayer co-operative survival horror action courtesy of Resident Evil: Outbreak. But the European version lacked online support and the lack-lustre follow-up died a lonely quiet death. So now Turtle Rock and Valve are having a bash with this nightmarish co-op blaster, which takes place after a particularly nasty rabies pandemic that turns a massive majority of the human population into frothy-mouthed psychos. Missions take place in standard post-apocalyptic zombie flick locales - deserted hospitals, abandoned villages, etc - with groups of four players working together against the hordes. IGN has a hands-on here.
Patapon (Sony Computer Entertainment WorldWide Studios, PSP) Frankly, no-one does stylised 2D action like Sony Japan these days and after the success of LocoRoco, here's another brash, primary-coloured slap around the face of hi-def visuals. Like Pa Rappa the Rappa, Patapon marries a western artistic influence (then Rodney Greenblat, now French graphic artist Rolito) with Japanese game design sensibilities to create a distinctive rhythm action romp. Here, players control the armies of the titular civilisation as they march across their world, fighting enemies and monsters with drumbeat synchronised weapon attacks.
Project White Rock (RedLynx, N-Gage compatible handsets) Little is known about Nokia's flagship title for the re-invented N-Gage platform - just that it'll run on both mobile and PC, with users of both platforms presumably able to compete with and against each other in some kind of online adventure. Those of you who believe there were NO good games on the original N-Gage are wrong: there was the brilliant battle strategy title Pathway to Glory, which would have been a million seller on Nintendo DS. And the developer of Pathway? RedLynx. So yes, one to watch, even if you're unconvinced about everything else N-Gage related.
Prototype (Radical Entertainment, PC, PS3, Xbox 360) A few elements of this ambitious open-world adventure sound familiar. The game's anti-hero, Alex Mercer, wakes up on an operating table to find he has amnesia and superhuman powers (hmmm, Second Sight?), allowing him to take on the physical appearance of anyone he kills (ah, Messiah). From here, he must explore a ravaged New York City in which spec ops cops fight the aggressive victims of a deadly virus - do all game designers love 28 Days/Weeks Later? There's even a trendy free-running element as Mercer leaps from rooftop to rooftop in his quest to unlock the massive conspiracy behind the adventure. This year's Darkness? Let's hope this one lives up to the pre-release promise.
Race Driver: GRID (Codemasters, PC, PS3, Xbox 360) In Codie's press release announcing the mid-2008 launch of its latest racing title, Chief Designer Ralph Fulton has this to say: "GRID focuses on everything that happens between the start grid and the chequered flag: the drama, the rivalries, the aggression and the crashes. This is not a game about collecting cars or spending all of your time in the front-end tuning suspension settings or designing liveries. We want to make racing exciting again." It's an ostentatious boast, but this studio does have a history of innovative ideas, from the compromise-free against-the-clock focus of Colin McRae Rally to the narrative-heavy framework of TOCA Race Driver 2. GT5 will be grabbing the headlines, but I'm certain I'll prefer playing this.
Rez HD (Q Entertainment/HexaDrive, Xbox Live Arcade) The Dreamcast classic gets a hi-def makeover for Xbox 360 but everything else about Tetsuya Mizuguchi's synesthesia-sporting rhythm shooter remains untouched. Imagine the beautiful cyberpunk visuals and pumping dance music on your 50-inch plasma screen and Dolby Digital home theatre set-up. Still playing games on a 20" CRT with mono speaker? Ah well, download it anyway.
Starcraft II (Blizzard, PC, Mac) Over-shadowed now by the religion that is World of Warcraft, Starcraft was a key PC game of the nineties, making number seven in IGN's 2005 list of the Top 100 Games of All-Time. The sequel, of course, promises a massively overhauled graphics engine and more integral multiplayer options courtesy of the Battle.net ranking system, but retains the original three races and the use of cinematic cut-scenes to drive the narrative. What we want though is massive armies of powerful, perfectly balanced alien units battling it out across the cosmos. Blizzard isn't likely to let us down.
Super Smash Bros Brawl (Nintendo, Wii) The comedy fighting series comes to Wii with more star appearances than a BBC costume drama. As well as Nintendo faves like Mario, Samus and Zelda, we'll be knocking the stuffing out of Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog. The latest Smash Bros iteration also includes online multiplayer and a more robust single-player mode in the form of side-scrolling adventure, "The Subspace Emissary" - a title surely nicked from the original Star Trek series.
Street Fighter 4 (Capcom, PS3, Xbox 360) The first new Street Fighter title in ten years is more likely to be out next year to be honest, but what the heck. Producer Yoshinori Ono has told Edge and EGM readers to expect a highly tactical game, based more around anticipating your opponent's moves than pulling off extravagant chains and combos. The highly stylised visuals hinted at in the Capcom Gamers Day trailer may not be entirely practical, but a toned down 2D re-reading is expected. Apparently taking place between SF II and III, we can expect a nice mix of classic protagonists and newer faces.
