New Games For Windows titles announced at E3

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, known to friends as E3, is upon us, which means the entire games industry is currently wandering around Los Angeles finding out what it's doing in the next 12 months. The first big press conference was held by Microsoft, and it announced a huge amount of new stuff coming up for PC gamers.

The big news (sadly leaked a few days beforehand) is that Gears of War is going to be released on PC, with Games for Windows - LIVE support and new DirectX10 features that you'll only be able to view in Windows Vista. There's also going to be new chapters in the campaign mode, in which you guide the hilariously beefy space marine Marcus Feenix through a series of ground-shaking battles against an invading alien menace, a game editor, and "a new multiplayer mode". It's already got co-operative play - one of the most satisfying ways to play any game, incidentally- so I will await further announcements with interest. No word on whether you'll be able to play it on PC against Xbox opponents like Shadowrun, although given the rabid player base on Xbox Live I'm not sure that's an entirely bad thing.  

Also getting the LIVE treatment is Viva Pinata, one of my guiltier Xbox 360 pleasures from last year. You have to raise a garden filled with cheerful creatures by careful nurturing, gardening, and breeding - it's one of those dolls-house games, like The Sims, that can be terrifyingly compulsive, and you'll be able to play it online with ease using Games For Windows - LIVE. Again, precise details to be decided.

Several other LIVE titles were annnounced, all of them using Microsoft's new service to add new multiplayer modes, unlockable achievements and in-game chat:

• The Club (gun-filled gladiatorial combat)
• Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights (street racing and terrible naming)
• Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (really rather interesting-looking action game about mercenaries recovering diamonds)
• Universe at War: Earth Assault (a real-time strategy game from some of the chaps who did Command & Conquer)

On top of that, there are loads of other Games for Windows titles coming out this year and in 2008. I'm going to shamelessly copy and paste this list because it's so long:

• Age of Empires® III: The Asian Dynasties (Microsoft Game Studios)
• Bee Movie™ Game (Activision)
• Crysis (EA)
• Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (Eidos)
• World in Conflict (Vivendi)
• BlackSite: Area 51 (Midway Games)
• Clive Barker’s Jericho™ (Codemasters)
• The Club (SEGA)
• Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts (THQ)
• Empire Earth® 3 (Sierra Entertainment)
• Fallout® 3 (Bethesda Softworks)
• Flight Simulator X: Acceleration (Microsoft Game Studios)
• Gears of War (Microsoft Game Studios)
• Hour of Victory (Midway Games)
• John Woo Presents Stranglehold (Midway Games)
• Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights (THQ)
• Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Eidos)
• Nancy Drew®: Legend of Crystal Skull (Her Interactive Inc.)
• Operation Flashpoint™ 2 (Codemasters)
• Rise of the Argonauts (Codemasters)
• Rogue Warrior (Bethesda Softworks)
• SEGA Rally Revo (SEGA)
• Sid Meier’s Civilization IV®: Beyond the Sword^TM (2K Games)
• Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Gold Edition (2K Games)
• Spider-Man™: Friend or Foe (Activision)
• Star Wars® Empire at War®: Gold Pack (LucasArts)
• The Witcher (Atari)
• Thrillville™: Off the Rails™ (LucasArts)
• Turning Point™: Fall of Liberty (Codemasters)
• Universe at War: Earth Assault™ (SEGA)
• Viva Piñata(Microsoft Game Studios)
• Zoo Tycoon® 2: Extinct Animals (Microsoft Game Studios)

That should keep us busy until at least, oh, the next E3 next July. Because all these are Games For Windows titles they've all been tested to install and run as effortlessly as possible on your PC - and hopefully there'lly be more DirectX 10 extras to be announced later on, too.