Battle Engine Aquila

Battle Engine Aquila has been described as a "grimdark military strategy game that takes place in the jungles of Southeast Asia." Although details are currently sketchy, the game's "story and characters" are set in the fictional conflict between the Iberian and Aztec worlds. According to the game's official Web site, "The country has collapsed over two generations, and few people have survived. The struggle for peace is now over. Now the vicious war is behind the turmoil. Six nations fight each other for supremacy, which turns the tides in their favour."

The game will also have destructible environments, such as craters and shattered stone walls. The player will have access to a variety of weapons as well as technologies and equipment. The game's designers, King Jaram, have stated that the first game will be built on the "4x4" CPU and will support two to four players simultaneously.

There's no release date for Battle Engine Aquila yet, but THQ has stated that the game will be in stores on the Xbox and PlayStation 2 during its first quarter of 2002.

Red Faction: Guerrilla is a third-person action game set in a futuristic universe. Players assume the role of Darius Mason, a space pilot who's been given an official name and embarks on a mission to eradicate the alien invaders known as the EDF.

John Rowe, CEO of Red Faction developer Volition, has said that he's not sure how he expects to make a third-person shooter, but the game will have a "much more cinematic feel."

Strategy First plans to release Red Faction: Guerrilla in Q1 2002 for the PC, PS2, and Xbox.

Codename: Anomaly

Codename: Serious Sam Developer: TimeGate Studios Publisher: Codemasters Release Date: TBC

ToeJam & Earl's hybrid humor and frantic shooter gameplay will be the first game developed by Taito's 3D studio, Q Entertainment. The game was previously known as Taito's M-2 Spikers, though those names were changed to Taito's new name.

The Wii version of Populous: The Art of Music, from Populous creator Will Wright, will be the first to use the Wii remote's analog nunchuck controls.

Square Enix's lineup for this year includes Final Fantasy XII, Kingdom Hearts II, and Final Fantasy XII. The publisher expects to have plenty more games to release this year, and more details will be announced at the Tokyo Game Show.

Though no new Final Fantasy game was mentioned at TGS 2003, there was still plenty of announcements. Square Enix president Yoichi Wada confirmed that a new Final Fantasy game was in development. Among the newly announced games were FF XII: Revenant Wings and Kingdom Hearts II. No further information was available on the latter.

On the hardware side, Sony announced that it has fully redesigned the PlayStation 2 to compete against the GameCube. The new model features a large, squared-off shape, which helps to represent the new hardware. The biggest news, however, was the confirmation that the PSP would not be included in the PS2 price drop. The company did not release the price drop in Japan, so the price drop is merely a reaction to the fan outcry for the previous price drop.

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings is currently in development for the PlayStation 2.

MTO: Based on what we saw at the Tokyo Game Show, it looks like the PS2 will play a lot like FF XII. In FF XII, the player plays as a white knight who must defeat his evil mother, Zidane. The main theme in the game is that the world is now the same as it was before, and it will change as the player progresses through it. The world will be circular, with the same level of freedom that FF XII was known for. The gameplay has been greatly improved, as there will now be dungeons. The graphics are an improvement over the previous version, and the game looks and runs a lot better. In fact, we saw the game running at about 8 frames per second, as well as looking incredibly crisp. The game is not called Final Fantasy XII anymore, and you can read about how the game has been tweaked and refined on the development team.

GS: What kind of experience have you had with working on the original FFVII?

MW: In Final Fantasy VII, the director and composer, Hideki Kamiya, came to the rescue, as a result of an internal disagreement with his team. Hideki Kamiya was from California, but he's been a lot less respected, so he had no experience working on the original Final Fantasy VII. Since the original FFVII was released, we've worked on the sequel, as well as new installments in the Final Fantasy series, but the staff here at GameSpot has been much more supportive of the title.