At E3, I had the extreme pleasure of sitting down with Akella. They have been a producer in the world for quite some time, and they have released a lot of great title. They continue to bring forth these games into the world, and because of that, they have a special spot in my heart. They started way back in the early 1990’s, by supplying the Russian market with programs. In the mid 90’s they moved onto the development and localization of the computer games. Really though, it is best to even concentrate on where they are going.

Heavy Duty.

This is a third person world crawler, with an economy system, mainly equating into a tactical RTS/action game. You create multiple units, and then you may have the system attack with them for you, or go in there yourself and lead your troops and even aim the attack of the unit you are controlling. The main idea behind the game so far is that you are on a living and breathing planet, and this means around the entire world. You can initially just pull back and look around at it, then check out all the different levels, plant-life, and animals, or you may choose to check out the rainforests, deserts, or even the ice caps. Mainly the entire world is at your fingertips ready for you to explore.

With the terraforming of mountains, it will create monolithic hills, and some characters can climb all of the landscapes. The landscapes are quite lush, and it is a site to see the physic environment, with boulders that you can push over with your characters. You can even pick up objects, and crawl down mountains -- vertically even -- which I saw done with a cactus. This will be a great thing for missions, as some of the spider like mechs can grab them like a piece of fruit, and deliver them down like a feather floating down to the earth.

The game features a line of site feature, removing the traditional fog of war. This ensures that the environments stay nice and rich, and worth playing through. There is an economy system that allows you to set up trades with different areas, where you will also have relationship gauges within the game, which will affect your creation of your characters, and what you may trade for.

Currently it is under development by Primal Software, and it still is in the alpha stage, but you may be able to play this in Q1 of next year.

Hard to be a God.

This is a role-playing game with adventure roots. It has espionage elements based on the storyline from a novel by the Strugatsky brothers. Currently they are running with an early build, but even right now it looks great. The main hero is trained in diplomacy and horse combat, but the game is mainly about scouting. Their main mission is to scout and report the situation in the Kingdom of Arcanar, an independent state beset by anarchy. At the same time it is about long battles about the main hero, so it is centred on them as well. The world has access to higher technologies while in a western styled world, including things like gatling guns.

Character interaction has also been taken into account, as NPCs will treat you differently depending on what type of clothing you are wearing. Your main methods of traveling are either by horseback, or by walking, and this is a top down view of the character, with the camera always behind their back. There are also extensive things added to the game, like little things moats around the castles, and some very nice forests further away. Horses may gallop and run even through cornfields that collapse under your advances, but then spring up after you move beyond them. Other little things added, which is a nice touch, are generic random NPC battles with other NPC characters, where blood splatters against the ground. It has a standard inventory system, with an illustrated map to keep track of where you are. Also this is a sci-fi world, with 100 types of weapons in the game. They bounce around from one-handed, two-handed, shaft weapons, swords and shields, bow, crossbows, and pistols. Then there are modifications like scorchers, and power generators to further power some of your weapons.

Inhabited Islands : Battlefield.

This game just happens to be a turn base strategy, a field that seems to be on the decline in recent years. This game is also comparable to Massive Assault, but it does seem to have more depth. The writers are fairly legendary, so you may expect a deep and immersive storyline. There are four different factions, each original from the other by leaps and bounds. You have a main character which transverse the different factions, allowing you to experience each of them before you choose which one is the best for you. Something that they are specifically overjoyed with is the streamlined game play allowing to make multiple orders, even before the current team has gone out an performed them to the fullest.

In the beginning of each of the maps there is a dynamic camera view giving your displays, and a break down of what the battle is going to go like. There is a full guide telling you what you will need to do, so that the action can stay heavy, while not thinking about the way to attack or defend your base. This allows you to think of which units should attack which opponents, to ensure the safety of your team as best you can. Since with the previous game, the press complained before that it was a sci-fi chess game, this has been changed to make more centred around the specific abilities of their units. With this one you will have more teams, which allows you to have many more units to jump around trying to take over the area. The units will be larger as well, so that one attack will not drastically reduce the efficiency of the unit. Some of the units also have the ability to fortify their position to make them much more of a fighting force, allowing them to have a sit down battle. Each difficulty level is a major step up from the last, with more difficult objectives, with ramping AI. This one also does have the forced fog of war, which allows you to just concentrate on the current battle, rather than everyone on the map.

For commands, hitting tab brings up the objectives so they will never be out of mind. Because those objectives are just away at a touch of a button, this game is huge for when you just need to blow things up and defend areas. There are complex parameters for your units but you can just get all the information from selecting the units, with will show paths, and the battle range. This has been toned down slightly making it easier to read and understand the abilities. This is set up on a hexagon system as well, for a max of 6 VS 1 battles if you surround a unit with close range weapons. There are a bunch of transportation units to have groups quickly moved, so deployment is quite easy.