TERA

This year was another great showing of TERA. TERA is an online RPG set in an open, medieval world. It will have the depth of an MMO but play like a console action game. This year, the developers were especially excited to reveal and show off TERA’s Political System, and they jumped right in with details.

Players will have a way to rise to power and a list of features to employ during their reign of power. Once you have risen to power, your title will advance to a “Vanarch,” and you will reign over one of 18 provinces in-game. There are two systematic ways to gain the title of Vanarch and that is by popular vote of the players or by advancing to the No. 1 slot in PvP tournaments. To be considered as a candidate for a Vanarch election, the player will need to be max level and have a lot of influence. One way to gain influence is to own and manage a guild committee. Players will also need to get creative on the Web to gain popularity. For example, one could run a YouTube campaign. Or a player with exceptional PvP skill could bypass the entire popularity route and take the title by force through PvP tournaments.

Once a player is elected to Vanarch, their username is attached to the province on the map for all to see. A Vanarch gets a custom mount as well as all their guild members in the immediate party. They can open shops, imprison players in their province who display a bad attitude, force taxes, run custom events and write policy. However, a Vanarch would need to maintain support during the term, and that can be aided by completing Vanarch-level quests for posse points. There is also talk of a big-daddy Exarch. The Exarch will reign over the entire six continents and 18 provinces. There were no other details given about this role.

TERA will be subscription-based and will have no microtransactions. The producer assured us that there are tricks in place to squash out gold farming. The game will ship for the PC when it is ready.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrimis the fifth installment of the very popular RPG series. This installment features a brand new engine just for Skyrim called the Creation Engine. This being an Elder Scrolls game, the player will navigate an open, expansive world. There is the ability to switch between playing in first- or third-person perspective. This time, the third-person angle was given extra care with better player animations and models.

Players can dual-wield any one-handed weapons in the game. An entirely new feature is the ability to also dual-wield spells. If one were to dual-wield two of the same spells, there would now be the ability to launch a more powerful version of that spell.

Throughout the game, there have been many features that provide a fuller and more polished feeling over previous games. There are now Guardian Stones, which help the player pick their class. You will be able to swap classes by approaching these stones at different points through the game. Like previous installments of Elder Scrolls, leveling up can occur through mundane actions like blocking and swinging swords. The inventory will show all items in their full 3-D splendor.

Bethesda assured us that many aspects of the game are geared toward a pleasing experience on the console. Collecting books will be a way to understand the backstory of Skyrim, and there are more than 300 books to be found. With every level advancement, the player can choose a perk to gain abilities. The world map is now simply a pulled out look at the entire 3-D world and looks very impressive. Dialogue encounters with NPCs no longer pause the game, which allows the pacing to seem much more natural. The ability to craft your own weapons and armor will add an enormous amount of depth.

The main character is known as Dovakin or as descended from Dragons. You will learn Dragon Shouts, which increase in power with the more words you learn. Dragon Shouts are like uber spells. A couple of spells shown in the demo seemed to slow down time, making it easy to battle enemies and also the ability to summon a lightning storm to strike difficult monsters. You will need to collect the souls of slain dragons to unlock these spells. This was demoed wonderfully at the end when the player was pit against a fire dragon followed by a frost dragon. The fire dragon was killed first, and the soul from it was used in gaining a spell casted against the frost dragon’s weaknesses. Boss dragons are not scripted events and behave spontaneously like any other mobs.

Top Gun: Hard Lock

Top Gun: Hard Lock will take place 25 years after the movie. Spider, the protagonist, will take on 15 missions in the single-player campaign. During the campaign there will be flashbacks to Top Gun training where characters like Maverick are shown interacting with Spider.

Top Gun will be all arcade action, plenty of dogfighting and not a flight simulator. Most of the story will progress midflight over radio chatter. The developers took the philosophical approach to the game as “What if Michael Bay were to remake Top Gun?” Their answer is “more explosions and more sunsets.” There will be plenty of nerdy Top Gun gear, and it will be super easy to play.

Backbreaker Vengeance

The Backbreaker Football series found a huge success with a mode called “Tackle Alley” in its iPhone game. The developers have brought this experience and more to the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. The Tackle Alley mode is you as a suited up football player running the ball down the field. You will be dodging guys with a variety of differing moves and jukes. Through the different game modes, you will be gaining points on your performance that will place you on the XBLA Leaderboards.

If you would like to challenge other players online, you can use a matching system that finds players with approximate scores to make it a tempting match. Another mode known as Vengeance will change the roles and put you as a tackler. The third and final mode is known as Supremacy. In Supremacy mode, players will first compete for points then place you in a role based on your performance. The lowest score becomes the tackler. There are 350 levels that offer a huge level of replayability. The quick reload after a run makes the game very addicting to sit and play for a long time. Also, even when you fail, the tackles are never the same, and it looks cool.