Game Gallery Amusements

5/27/2005 12:00 PMBy: Adam Balkin New York 1

Each year, some games just generate so much hype, their release is anticipated all around the globe. Take “Civilizations III,” the latest version of the strategy series where dominating the game means dominating the globe.
“Religion is a part of the game now,” Soren Johnson of 2KGames said. “[So are] great people like Michelangelo, Aristotle, Shakespeare - they'll show up and change the course of history. The game's in full 3-D now, so you can zoom out and see the entire globe and then zoom all the way down into your cities. It's rooted in real history so people can really connect with it, but it plays to sort of that megalomaniac in everyone who wants to rule the world.”
Rapper 50 Cent has taken over the world of hip-hop. He also has a shoe line, bottled water, a movie in the making, and even a 50 Cent game on the way.
Big fans of 50 Cent get an added value from the game because not only did he record unique tracks just for the game, and not only are there mini-documentaries on his life in there, but developers are considering including in the packaging some authentic 50 Cent bling.
“It's an over-the-top ‘what if?’ scenario,” Andre Emerson of Vivendi Universal Games said. “It really deals with a cinematic version of 50 and G-Unit, and how things might have turned out if music hadn't entered their lives if it never became an outlet for them.”
New gamesGet ready for a new wave of video games.
“Call of Duty” has a few sequels on the way for those who wonder what if some battles in World War II had played out a little differently. “Call of Duty II” will be for the PC and Xbox 360.
“Big Red One” is for current consoles.
“’Big Red One’ is the story of the Big Red One division, which they were the first to land in most places. They were the first to fight, basically,” David Pokress of Activision said. “They were at Normandy, they were in North Africa they really were in every theater of war in World War II because they really were such an amazing outfit.”
Finally, for more out-of-this-world battling, “Quake IV,” due out more than five years since its predecessor, is one of - if not the - highly anticipated game of 2005.
“With ‘Quake IV’ we're really combining what we think is the best of the three ‘Quake’ [games],” Todd Hollenshead of id Software said. “[It has] the single-player experience from ‘Quake II], so you have this classic story of the forces from Earth fighting this alien race that's bent on the destruction of the human race, taking the battle back to their planet. Then [we] combine that with what the skill-based multiplayer game was in ‘Quake III’ to bring what we hope with ‘Quake IV’ is the best ‘Quake’ yet.”
As always though, if you plan on getting these graphics-intensive games this winter holiday season, you may also want to beg your parents, Santa Claus, whoever, for the computer upgrade you'll probably need for them play properly.