Top 10 PC games at E3

7. Deus Ex: Human Revolution

The original Deus Ex was one of the greatest PC games of all-time, but its sequel – Invisible War – produced mixed feelings in many fans. This prequel may put the license back on top, but we’re certainly not going to get our hopes up until we’ve played it ourselves.

The gameplay appears to follow earlier iterations, with choice being a key element in how you approach things, and this giving the game a lot of replay potential. What’s definitely in place are tactical choices, so you can augment your cybernetic agent with numerous powers and equipment to better exploit a more stealthy or violent approach.

The real key, though, will be whether there are meaningful choices in the plot, as with the original, leading to varying endings. All the production work looks stellar, as you’d expect from Final Fantasy publishers Square Enix, but will all those flashy cutscenes get in the way of telling a multiply-branched story?

If you haven’t played Deus Ex, then the mixture of hiding and shooting most closely approximates Metal Gear Solid, and with a Japanese publisher now on board it may become closer still to that franchise.

8. Rage

With a release date set for September, and a marketing campaign already running alongside TV hit The Walking Dead, we can expect Rage to be pretty much finished for the show floor at E3 2011.

Developed by id, the legendary minds behind Doom and Quake, this will be first outing of its new id Tech 5 engine. The game moves away from the claustrophobic horror of Doom 3 into an expansive post-apocalyptic world. It mixes elements of RPGs such as Elder Scrolls, with buggy racing from console racers such as MotorStorm and of course classic Doom-styled shooting with oversized shotguns and the like.

Your main enemies appear to be the usual bunch of irradiated mutant folk, though id is promising a big half-time twist, with a whole new set of bad guys looking likely. It’s hard to call this one, as its been in development for ages, but if the blend of elements comes off, it could easily be game of the year.

We hope the AI is capable of a little more than charging at a man with a loaded gun – stoopid muties