January certainly wasn’t the most amazing month for PC gamers in recent times, but at least it had more to offer than December did. While the list of impressive games is hardly any longer, their quality certainly is! Some of these games are real gems, others perhaps not as great as they may have looked initially, but all of them should be perfect food for the gamer who has already finished playing the great games of 2007 and is looking for something new. There’s bound to be something to your liking here and even low budget gamers get some loving, as 2 out of the following 4 games are budget priced!
Many new games are released every month, but which of these games are the ones worth buying? That’s what I’ll help you find out, in this monthly recurring series of Most Impressive PC Games. So when a new month begins, be certain to head on over to The Game Drone for a quick rundown of the latest and greatest titles, including links to game demos - where available - so you can give them a try for yourself!
As you can read in my hands-on beta impressions, which you can find by clicking the link above, Pirates of the Burning Sea is a surprisingly decent mmorpg. As the name implies you get to sail across the Caribbean as either a nationless Pirate or a Sailor, Freetrader or Privateer for one of the three nations in the game (England, France and Spain). Including extensive character customization tools, lively outposts as well as intense ship-to-ship battles, Pirates of the Burning Sea is bound to keep 18th century sailing fans pleased… at least for a while.
As you might expect, there are a few weaker aspects to note. Not the least of which is swashbuckling, which essentially feels sluggish, not-done and generally not engaging. While you get to complete many hundreds of missions in this game before you reach level 50, it does tend to get dull well before then. Mainly because the quests - with few exceptions - generally aren’t all that engaging, although the fact that some of them tie in to an interesting personalized storyline does score points. The engine’s performance is another thing that’s worrying, as well as the limited feeling of open-sea sailing, but all in all it’s still a game that should appeal to wannabe-pirates and sailors alike. Go give it a try over at the official website.
Sam & Max Episode 202: Moai Better Blues
That’s right: the second season of the popular episodic adventures of Sam & Max has begun! This second episode in the second season offers generally more of what you’ve come to expect from the series: stylish and silly adventures with lots of clicking to be done. In this particular episode Sam & Max are on vacation, but get to deal with a nasty surprise as their sun filled tropical paradise is about to be destroyed by a devastating volcanic eruption, unless you can help them stop it! Fans of the series should get this without fail. And as for players who’ve never given it a try before, you can download a full free episode from the official website, or you can buy the Season One box in stores (or on Steam). Best of all: these episodes are all budget priced - as is the season one box - so you don’t have to spend too much money for a fair amount of silly adventuring.
Finally, it’s here! This is without a doubt my number one game for the month of January. Savage 2 basically builds upon the groundwork of it’s predecessor as a state-of-the-art multiplayer shooter/strategy/roleplaying game. Just like the original two teams are included: humans and beasts, both of whom seem to be very well balanced as their win ratio is 51% to 49% with over 8000 games played as I write this. So what’s this fps/rts/rpg business about? Basically one player assumes control over your player-army as if it were a strategy game, whereas the rest of the team either plays a first/third person shooter (melee characters with guns/acid-lobbing attachments) or a role-playing game (casters), although all characters gain experience, levels, money and equipment.
Players will generally want to battle a few neutral critters, just like you would in Warcraft 3, for some easy experience and funds. Interestingly players also have to function as genuine RTS-units: building in the midst of battle and even collecting resources. Teamwork is essential, as the many classes balance one-another out quite effectively and you’ll really want to protect those siege units (yep, those are players too) and resource nodes if you want to take down the enemy’s structures and win the game. As you might expect from an indie-game the graphics aren’t exactly the industries finest, but they’re quite impressive nonetheless, certainly a match for the likes of Call of Duty 4 and The Orange Box.
Best of all is that you don’t need to buy the game to get a good taste of the full experience. Head on over to the official Savage 2 website and you can create a demo account! This gives you limited access to the game, which can then be fully unlocked for a small one-time fee of $30! While I haven’t actually played Savage 2, I did play the predecessor (even bought it back when it wasn’t a free game) and judging by reports that it’s even better… let’s just say that’s an $30 fee very well spent!
Universe at War: Earth Assault
To be perfectly honest I wasn’t really sure whether I should include this game in the list. You see: it’s one of those games that many people seem to have been anticipating, but didn’t quite deliver, sort of like Hellgate: London. Universe at War is the latest strategy game from Petroglyph Studios, developers of Star Wars: Empire at War - a more enjoyable strategy game - and mostly ex-Westwood employees (Dune, C&C, Nox, and so on). The game offers three very unique alien sides in an epic battle spanning our planet, but not so-much including humanity in the whole, which is lucky to have even a few survivors after initial alien invasions began. Or so it should, but reviews indicate that the singleplayer campaign is rather dull and straightforward.
In terms of graphics Universe at War is pretty, but seems to lag behind some recent games like Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance and World in Conflict. Some might even consider Command & Conquer 3 to be a prettier game, which is certainly no compliment, but seems rather accurate. To make things worse, multiplayer is hindered by the use of the horrible Windows Live service, and more specifically: the Gold service if you want the full experience. This essentially means you have to pay a monthly fee if you want to really participate in multiplayer in any decent way - and that for a service which offers only mediocre games, and not even a handful of them at that! This seems rather unimpressive, particularly in light of other recent strategy games, like the aforementioned World in Conflict and Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, which offer all the same services at no monthly fee whatsoever… although without the crossplatform PC vs Xbox360 play.
Of course if you still want to give the game a go, then you can download the demo here. (1.15 GB)
