Coming Attractions: RPGs

Lost Odyssey

This is the second Xbox 360 title from Mistwalker, the studio founded by Final Fantasy man Hironobu Sakaguchi. We like to imagine he was invited to stand in a glass dome while Microsoft threw money at him like in The Crystal Maze. But his first effort, Blue Dragon, didn't live up to expectations - probably not Microsoft's and certainly not Rob's. "It's by no means terrible, but without borrowing Sakaguchi's rose-tinted glasses it's not much fun either," he wrote.

So how's Lost Odyssey looking? Well, it follows the adventures of a 1000-year-old amnesiac called Kaim. He has a big sword and complicated trousers and hair like someone we went out with in 1995. Kaim is accompanied by a blue-haired girl called Seth. Apparently he spends much of his time going into reveries about the past, which suggests the game will be a like some kind of fantasy-themed Wonder Years.

Award-winning novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu is lending a hand with the story, while comic book artist Takehiko Inoue has done some nice drawings and Nobuo Uematsu is banging out tunes on his Bontempi. The game is being developed using Unreal Engine 3.

Lost Odyssey is already out in Japan and hasn't done too badly, scoring 33 out of 40 in Famitsu magazine. It'll be released over here on 29th February.

Star quality: The voice of Kaim in the Western version of Lost Odyssey will be provided by Keith Ferguson. He also played Basch in Final Fantasy XII. Speaking of which, the Internet is surprisingingly lacking in erotic fan fiction about the rabbit woman.

Rise of the Argonauts

New from Codemasters comes an action RPG featuring Jason and his magic fleece and a better frame rate than the Harryhausen film. Playing as the king of Iolchis himself you get to fight alongside great heroes of mythology such as Atalanta, Achilles and Hercules (not played by Sorbo, sadly).

As lead designer Charley Price told us last year, Rise of the Argonauts is all about storyline, character development and decision-making. There's not too much menu fiddling and inventory management, basically.

We're also promised "real-time, lethal combat unlike any you've ever seen in an RPG". No more stabbing enemies 20 times before they fall over; stick a sword through someone's heart and the consequences will be as immediate as you'd expect in real life. Or Lewisham.

Rise of the Argonauts is out later this year on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Herculean: Kevin Sorbo says if he could choose a superpower it would be: "The ability to kill every terrorist on the planet."

Fable 2

Yes, it's the latest offering from Sir Peter of Molyneux, or Pierre Molynoire as he is known in France. Fable 2 is an Xbox 360 exclusive and is out towards the end of this year, as the man himself told us during a recent LiveText interview.

So what else is there to know? Fable 2 is set 500 years after the first game. You'll have many more decisions to make, choosing whether to be a man or a woman, whether to get married and start a family or stay single and start drinking at four and play online poker till dawn.

There's a new combat system designed to reward you for mastering weapons, and you can use objects and the environment around you to defeat enemies. Also you can have a dog. See for yourself how the game is shaping up by checking out the dev diaries on the Fable 2 gamepage.

Quote me happy: Pierre Molynoire has come out with some classic sound-bites in his time, but Eurogamer's favourite is this gem from April 2005. Talking about the mysterious Dmitri project Molynoire explained, "It allows anyone who plays the game to relive their life, their entire individual life." Wheee! " That's a pretty ambitious concept," he added. Ah Pierre. Qui a laisse sortir les chiens.

Too Human

When US developer Silicon Knights isn't busy shouting "See you in court!" at Mark Rein, it enjoys developing action-RPGs exclusively for Xbox 360. This one sees you playing as Baldur, a cybernetic god who must defend humanity against an army of war machines.

There's lots of loot-collecting and levelling up and a wide range of weapons, armour and skill-sets. Baldur can also make use of cybernetic implants and we're promised "an unprecedented level" of character customisation. The combat system is said to "introduce a combination of weapons combat on a level that exceeds some fighting games", which sounds marvellous. For a bonus point: you can play the entire single-player game co-operatively over Xbox Live.

When we spoke to Silicon Knights boss Dennis Dyack in August last year, he said Too Human would be out in the first quarter of 2008. No word since but it is only the first third of the first quarter. Or something.

How many times: The press release for Too Human says it's the "first chapter of an exciting narrative in the tradition of classic trilogies such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings". For the last time, there is only one trilogy. Lord of the Rings is a story about some fairies. Star Wars is an epic dramatisation of actual historical events DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THERE'S A WAR GOING ON UP THERE.