3 MAXIMUMPC OCTOBER 2007
11 GAMES
THAT WILL
YOUR PC
Sony Online’s crazy concept MMO, The
Agency, puts you in charge of a top-secret
spy agency dedicated to protecting the world
from standard-issue megalomaniacs. The
Agency is impressive for more than its clever
game design and highly stylized art direction.
You see, the game progresses even
when you’re not logged in. If you set your
science branch to design a new type of
weapon, gadget, or car, the research will
happen whether you’re logged on or not.
When the gizmo’s ready for you to test,
you’ll get an email or text message with the
good news.
The in-game combat is particularly inter-
esting, with many varied missions. The one
we saw was reminiscent of an old-fashioned
dungeon crawl. First, you fi ght your way
through the goons, then you rescue the per-
son who needs rescuing, and then you track
down the big boss.Something not so subtle
happens to our pleasure cen-
ters when we lovingly apply
chain saw to skull in order to
fi nish off a deathmatch foe.
Gears of War on the PC adds
a whole new chapter to the
single-player campaign and a
handful of multiplayer maps
to the Xbox 360 version.
In addition to new con-
tent, the team at Epic ratch-
eted up the texture resolution
and removed some of the
more annoying features (like
depth-of-fi eld blurring) for
the PC version of Gears. But
more than anything else,
we’re looking forward to the
mission editor, which will let
players create custom game
types and play them with
their pals using Games for
Windows Live. That’s some-
thing to get excited about.AUSTIN POWERS—THE GAME
the agency
OVER-THE-TOP ACTION
gears of war