The first four titles clearly show a new strategy that Midway is determined to follow in the future; to invest in Hollywood licenses and tie a lot of celebrities to its products to bring them under a bigger and more mainstream attention. In Spyhunter 3: Nowhere to Run everything revolves around The Rock and his ride ‘The Interceptor’. This car/boat/motorcycle is armed to the teeth and packed with tons of spy gadgets. Even James Bond would be jealous. After the rather disappointing Spyhunter 2, Midway hopes to bring new life to the series with Hollywood, The Rock and ‘everything he stands for’. Expect The Rock signature wrestling moves to kill your enemies in various creative ways, non stop action, bullet time features to engage multiple targets and all sorts of special effects to show your exploding targets in the most cinematographic ways. The main objective of the game: simply to leave a giant trail of rampage. Decker is no Sam Fisher…

Things are a lot less violent in Happy Feet and Ant Bully. These two games, both based on animation films that will be released later this year, are aimed at a much younger audience, an audience Midway believes to be the main public for the current generation consoles in the future. All we saw were two small trailers and the message that these games will be released in 2006. Happy Feet tells the story of a swinging penguin colony (…) through a unique mixture of adventure, platform and rhythm games while Ant Bully, the tale of a shrunken ant bully, features a more classical platform gameplay.

While little sister is teaching penguins how to dance, her big brother can blow everything to bits and pieces in John Woo’s Stranglehold for the PS3 and all other next gen consoles (except the Revolution). This game is considered to be the interactive sequel of Hardboiled “and the game Black should have been but please don’t write that down, keep it indoors. Really”. In Stranglehold the player controls the character of Inspector Tequila, played by Chow Yun-Fat, and will shoot and drive himself a way through Hong Kong and Chicago. One of the most important features in this game is the ‘total destructibility’ which is processed in real time. This means that during replaying a level the totally destroyed patio, bar or Evil Man’s lair will look totally different than the last time you emptied your clips on it. And of course, a John Woo title would not be a John Woo title without all sorts of different camera angles and slow-motion effects. ‘Bullet time’ is thus also featured in this game but the developers stress that it is more a stylistic implementation than a gameplay feature – just like in the John Woo films. The game is divided in point to point driving and shooting missions and although there’s a lot of interaction with the environments, free roaming is not an option. The presence of a multiplayer death match mode could not be confirmed but wasn’t denied by Midway either. Sony was told to be very interested in the game and wanting to release it as a launch title for the PS3. But it is not certain at all that the developers can make the current launch date; although that Stranglehold is a next gen title it couldn’t persuade the press due to dodgy graphics and animations. A lot of work is yet to be done but Midway is confident that the final product will look and play awesome. For about 5 to 10 hours. A rather short game indeed, but that shouldn’t turn off the customers at all if you look at a game like for instance… Black.

Apart from the Hollywood band wagon, Midway is also working on a few of its classics. Prepare for the return of one of the bloodiest beat ‘em ups ever; Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. In MK: Armageddon you will be able to play with virtually all the characters from the series and on top of that you can create your own fighter using the… ‘Kreate Your Fighter’ option. Enough people to finish off, if necessary in your own bloody way, thanks to the… ‘Kreate a Fatality’ option in which you can – indeed – create your own fatality. Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is the final MK game in its current form because with the arrival of the next generation consoles the developers are planning something totally different with the MK universe. This doesn’t mean however that this game doesn’t have something cool to offer apart from lots of people to finish and lots of ways to perform that finishing touch. There’s a secret special mode and a conquest mode with its own storyline and an unlockable character. You will also be able to perform those ridiculously hectic air battles you might remember from the 2D era. Midway is confident that they have transferred this feature successfully to the 3D world. The graphics already looked pretty damn fine but the character models suffered from what I like to call the Pro Evolution Soccer syndrome. They’re all a bit plastic and shiny. But with the new and improved fighting mechanics, those sick fatalities and lots and lots of blood and gore, I’m sure that Jack Thompson will have yet another game to condemn.