Gods, Assassins, and Dragons 23
I'm not really one to link to reviews or previews, but 1up is running pieces looking at three really, really interesting titles slated for next year. On the theory that at least one of these is going to interest you, I direct you to Matt Leone's look at God of War 2, Shawn Elliot's piece on Assassin's Creed, and the first preview, anywhere, of BioWare's Dragon Age. From that article: "Large-scale combat is also on the top of Greig's mind--no surprise for a game where here, one naturally assumes, there be dragons. 'Remember the cave troll fight in The Fellowship of the Ring? That's what our large creature combat is going to be like. You've got the party guys running out, one guy jumping up on the back and stabbing, the other guy ducking between the legs.' Objects in the environment can be manipulated in your bid for tactical supremacy: Knock over a table to fire arrows or shoot fireballs from behind cover, but only where it makes sense--emergence be damned, in BioWare's reckoning. 'There will be a lot of ways of going through combat, and lots of different ways to interact with the environment...but our philosophy is that handcrafted is always better than random stuff.'"
Re:A good source of inspiration (Score:3, Funny)
My own opinions were mixed, though I fully agree that the seemingly excellent environmental components are actually quite silly. I mostly panned the game in my review of it at http://www.gamegrene.com/node/691 [gamegrene.com]