The game closest to release is Digital Illusions' RalliSport Challenge 2. While racing games aren't exactly scarce, RalliSport 2 sets itself apart with the sorts of hostile environments for which rally racing is known, without the loneliness or hyper-realism of the Colin McRae Rally series. It wouldn't be far wrong to call RalliSport 2 the Daytona USA of rally racing, as no apologies are made for trading adherence to the sport for the sake of fun.

The version on display was feature-complete, as its release in May approaches. Prominently featured was a branching single-player campaign in the style of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, allowing the player some choice in what kinds of races to take on. The race types are mainly differentiated by track terrain (ice racing or hillclimb, to name a couple), but the variety (90 tracks!) and complexity of the tracks should keep racing fans enthralled.

An extraordinary number of options have been added to the online mode, taking full advantage of the latest additions to Xbox Live, including the XSN Sports corner of Live. Besides head-to-head play and downloadable ghosts of previous tries on a track, Digital Illusions has added an unusual number of options for customizing player-run tournaments. Tournament organizers can choose tracks, race types, and what cars will be available, as usual, but even variables like the view mode can be chosen by an organizer.

The surprise of the bunch is Unreal Championship 2: the Liandri Conflict. Unlike the first game to bear the Unreal Championship name, UC2 isn't just a neutered Xbox port of the latest Unreal Tournament. Instead of incorporating team-based vehicular combat like Unreal Tournament 2004, UC2 is instead a FPS/fighting game hybrid that blends first-person shooting with third-person melee, drawing heavily on the recent Jedi Knight titles.

Players can switch freely between third-person and first-person views, in order to accommodate the new emphasis on melee attacks. Melee is no longer a desperation tactic; a successful chain of melee hits can stun an enemy, leaving him or her helpless. An especially daring attacker can even finish a helpless foe off with a Fatality-like coup de grace, for a double-value kill. Acrobatics, shields, and Jedi Knight-style deflection of incoming fire make melee feasible, and as a result players should tend to spend as much, if not more, time in third-person view than first-person.

The third-person view also brings new agility to the characters of UC2. Not only can combatants jump, but they can wall-jump, going flying around the arenas. Arenas are even built with "chimneys" (paired parallel walls) for players to climb with wall-jumps. Adrenaline abilities, like super moves in fighting games, can enhance this agility, multiply damage, or cause other effects.

Another stylistic shift is the differentiation between characters in Unreal Championship 2. Each character, apparently all of whom are from the single-player story mode, is nearly as different from the others as characters in a fighting game; each character has different adrenaline abilities, as well as varying levels of toughness and speed. Each character comes with a melee and basic ranged weapon, as well, but these simple weapons are basically the same for all characters. More fighting-style additions were promised, but weren't evident in this build.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The rocket launcher, flak cannon, sniper rifle, and beam rifle were in this build (with more classics, like the "goo gun," promised), as were a number of classic Unreal arenas. This version is still early, and far from feature-complete, with most of the arenas, multiplayer, and online modes missing, of course, as UC2 is set for a 2004 holiday release.

Sudeki is an odd duck. At first glance, it looks like a pretty standard Japanese RPG, with a prominent, linear story and anime-styled character designs. Closer inspection, however, reveals Western tics: a first-person shooting mode? A lightweight character building system? It turns out that it is under development by Climax Studios, an English development studio better known for racing games like Moto GP 2 and ATV Quad Power Racing. They've created a game with a lot of potential, but limited by a lack of appeal to...well...anyone.

The demo began with an absolutely gorgeous cut scene, apparently completely in the game engine. The game itself didn't quite live up to this high standard, visually, but everything was clean and attractive, even as the off-the-shelf story intoduction picked up. There's a tower, and parallel worlds, and a vast conspiracy pertaining thereto, but little story was available to see in this version, unfortunately. That there could be a lot of potential here if Climax moves away from the RPG clichés, but this remains to be seen.

Sudeki is an action RPG, in the style of games like Dark Cloud 2 and Phantasy Star Online, despite its Final Fantasy-like stylings. Characters manuever in combat in familiar ways, but melee plays like a brawler instead of an RPG. A and X are used for melee attacks, and tapping the buttons in the right order and timing can bring off combos like the hero levering himself into the air with his sword to deliver a flying kick. Special attacks, like spells and such, are (thankfully) chosen from a menu while everything goes into super-slow motion, much like in the recent 007: Everything or Nothing. Different characters have different abilities, naturally, but one unusual addition is a first-person mode for characters with ranged attacks. Nothing is innovative about combat in Sudeki, but the unusual additions are a bit of a breath of fresh air.

The real challenge seems to be the puzzles, mostly block-pushers or switch-finders with a twist of Golden Sun. Different characters have different abilities, be they the ability to dispel illusions, climb walls, or launch into the air. Naturally, these abilities are used to hit switches and find colored keys, in order to open doors and move on to the next of each dungeon. Legend of Zelda fans will be quite used to this formula, but it works, and could be quite entertaining in the final version.

Sudeki seemed somehow rough at GDC, with an inconsistent framerate and not a few bugs left in it, so it's still up in the air what the final package will end up playing like. What's more, it's just too Japanese to really appeal to those sick of Japanese-styled RPGs, but probably too Western to appeal to purists (few of whom own Xboxes anyway, I'd wager.) There's the standard Xbox graphic bells and whistles, and all the ingredients for an entertaining RPG, but it remains to be seems how fun it will be, and who exactly Sudeki is supposed to appeal to. These questions should be answered this June, when Sudeki is released.