For the year of 2007, I have 2 heavily anticipated games, one for the PC and one for the console. For the PC it is the action RPG known as Hellgate: London and for the PS3 console it would have to be Final Fantasy XIII. There are of course quite a few other games that look promising to me such as Command & Conquer 3, Supreme Commander, Spore, Devil May Cry 4, Tekken 6, White Knight Story, and the list goes on.
But they don’t really give me the feeling of anticipation like these 2 games do. 
So read on to find out more about them!
Like the light that shines through the Crystal,
the universe shines with multi-colored content.
First up is Final Fantasy XIII which is of course the 13th installment of the Final Fantasy series and it will be the first Final Fantasy game on the PS3. Below is the E3 trailer for the game.
From the latest JUMP Festa trailer that was shown in private, FF XIII seems to be set in a futuristic world where a gigantic floating city called Cocoon drifts in the sky, protected by the Crystal within. Intruders from Pulse, the world below, have then entered this city and caused the inhabitants trouble.
Because of this, the government of Cocoon, “Holy Palace“, has decided to exile the ones who let the intruders in because they failed in their jobs and also came into contact with the people from Pulse. But there were problems with the exile and so the Crystal has chosen someone to destroy the world of Pulse. That someone is the woman we see in the trailers and her (code)name is “Lightning“.
The combat system seems to be a real-time combat system similar to that used in FF XII minus all those glowing lines. As seen in the trailer, there is a small circular gauge at the top right-hand corner and when that gauge is filled up then the character can enter an “Overclock” mode. While in this Overclock mode, everyone slows down except for the character, so it’s similar to the the bullet-time of the Matrix. Speculation is that this will be the “limit break” system for FF XIII.
Well I guess that FF XIII has a bit of a twist from the usual “save the world” plot of the past Final Fantasies, because this time the protagonist seeks to destroy the world instead, but then again I’m sure not all is what it seems. I’m also hoping that the price of a PS3 drops faster!
Next is the action RPG shooter Hellgate: London.
The setting is the year 2038, 18 years after the demons crossed over from hell to invade the once-proud city of London. The city is in ruins, but remains unmistakable. Rubble litters the streets and the buildings that once stood proud in the skyline are now vacant, shadowed hulks burning with eternal hellfire.
What’s left of the once-great city now serves as the arena for the great battles that pit the human resistance against their demonic enemy. From the Temple Church on the banks of the Thames to abandoned and secured Underground stations, this international metropolis is now ground zero in the fight to save humanity.
Many people have said that Hellgate: London is pretty much Diablo 3, and to some extent I guess you could say that is true because the game is being developed by Flagship Studios, which was founded by the big ex-employees of Blizzard such as Erich Schaefer and Bill Roper who developed the Diablo series.
From that you can pretty much guess how Hellgate: London will be like – just imagine Diablo 2 with souped-up 3D graphics and a whole shit-load of guns and swords. The RPG part of Hellgate is probably not going to be the main part of the game, so expect it to be similar to a Diablo-style RPG story.
So far there are 3 main classes for the game: Templar, Cabalist and Hunter. Taking reference to Diablo 2 classes, the Templars can be considered to be similar to that of the barbarian/paladin class with the various buffs and auras, while the Cabalists are much like the necromancer with their magicks and transformations. Both the Templar and Cabalist have auto-aim (again like Diablo) but the Hunter is different because they are like the traditional FPS shooter with no auto-aim and powerful ranged weapons. Think of them as the high-tech Amazons.
Like Diablo 2 you can mix and match various components on your weapons. There are about 100 different base weapons and many more types of mods such as batteries, fuel and ammo. They will all have the random prefix and suffix system from Diablo as well. Now you really understand why everyone is calling Hellgate: London as Diablo 3…
But words can only tell you so much, so it’s best to see the action in videos
8 Comments
I truly doubt any of us will see FFXIII Anytime this year.
I mean FFXII started showing up at E3 2004 if I remember correctly, and then we didn’t actually get the game till 2 years after that. So don’t get your hopes up.
Bad news. Hellgate London is shitty. I’m working for the company that’s bringing Hellgate London to Singapore, and I’ve personally played that game already, and it’s not worth the hype.
It’s a poor mixture of FPS with Diablo2 like skilltrees and for an MMORPG, it’s can only bank on its graphics and gimmicks which won’t last.
Bluestreak: Hmmm I guess I was thinking of the JPN release for FF XIII but even then it might still not be this year. D:
Tsubaki: That’s disappointing to hear but since the beta testing isn’t out yet, I’m still harboring some hope for a better final game!
After the disappointment of FFXII, I doubt I’ll play any other FF ever. All I want is a new “Tales of” game and a new Melty Blood or King of Fighters.
FFXII was good. You just had to spend time appreciating all the fine work the developers put in. They put amazing detail in places you’d never expect to see.
Anyway FFXIII is good an all, but I’m really looking forward to the FF Versus XIII( or is it FFXIII Versus?). Mainly because reason one, the main character reminds me of sasuke from Naruto, and two, if they have similar music in the game like they did in the trailer… I would do anything to get my hands on a copy!
Well I have mixed feelings about FF XII. The gameplay system is really my favourite fighting system in any RPG and I quite loved the bounty hunts instead of all those regular boring ‘run back and forth’ quests.
But the character development was sadly lacking and the endgame plot was somewhat rushed. I wish they had fleshed out the Occuria more.
Hellgate london will pawn you you dont know what your talking about having alfa tested it i know it kicks ass havent you played past the first 2 lvls xD
I gave a fairly critical review of the recent strategy supreme commander, remarking that it was fun to play but that it was far from revolutionizing the genreations…..