We’re coming into the home stretch of the historic Autumn/holiday games season for 2007, but there are few more big ticket titles for the second half of November and December like a certain PC shooter and a major music game. Here are the potential blockbuster games posed to close out the year:

Crysis

Platforms: PC
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developers: Crytek
Description: What Halo 3 was to the Xbox 360 and console gaming crowd, Crysis will be to Windows Vista and the PC gaming crowd. Or at least, that’s what everyone is expecting. Will it matter that Crysis demands some pretty powerful hardware to run on Vista? Will gamers be discouraged and stick with Windows XP, thus robbing them of the potential graphics upgrade provided by DirectX 10? Will Crysis be more than just a vastly prettier version of Crytek’s previous first-person shooter hit, Far Cry?

Things get a little chilly on a South Pacific island once alien invaders show up in the new PC game Crysis.

Like it matters; Crysis is the PC game that folks have been looking forward to for almost two years. Yes, it will most certainly spur some major hardware upgrades. What did we expect for a game that is supposed to advance computer graphics to the next level? Now that we’ve had ample time to run through the multiplayer beta (a little boring) and single player demo (what a tease!), it’s time to prepare for the full version of the game, which arrives so shortly we can taste it. We’ve known for sometime that the story behind Crysis deals with a futuristic U.S. Delta Force team that descends on an island in the South Pacific after the North Korean Army takes a team of American archaeologists hostage. As Delta Force soldier Jake Dunn, codenamed "Nomad," players parachute on to the island and soon encounter hostile North Koreans. But that’s not all: there’s a mysterious alien presence on the island as well that soon starts slicing up all things human in the tropical jungle, which soon enough is bizarrely transformed into an icy tundra. The aliens look like a combination between the creatures from "Independence Day" and the giant tripod machines from Steven Spielberg’s "War of the Worlds" - which is to say, they look pretty creepy and imposing but not terribly original. Still, the demo offered a glimpse of what’s in store for PC gamers. The gameplay looks quite good, courtesy of the futuristic "Nano Muscle Suit" that gives players superhuman speed and strength as well as a limited cloaking device. And of course, the game’s visual design and graphics are impressive. But if Crysis is going to be more than just the prettiest girl at the prom and become a true classic, it will need to provide a little something extra beyond solid shooter action and offer up some twists and unexpected gameplay features. From the looks of the demo, that may indeed be what we’ll be getting.

Unreal Tournament 3

Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Publisher: Midway Games
Developers: Epic Games
Description: When it comes to online shooters the field is like a pants-splitting Christmas buffet; there are a ton of options and they all look good. So many shooters are available now or coming soon that no matter what your style of play there’s bound to be one out there that you’ll like. If breakneck speed and a science fiction setting are to your liking then look no further than Unreal Tournament 3.

Unreal Tournament 3 ups the ante for the UT franchise.

Don’t let the title throw you; this is actually the fourth Unreal Tournament game. Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 were both driven by the Unreal Engine 2 and at the time Epic was aiming for a sports-game release calendar with annual updates. Since UT3 represents a different generation of the technology it was fitting to set it apart from the annual updates with a different name. Unreal Tournament 3 uses the new Unreal Engine 3 that powered games like BioShock and Gears of War but the same frantic gameplay that has kept the franchise alive is at the core of the game. This new entry in the Unreal Tournament series retains many of the weapons and vehicles from the previous games but adds some new features and gameplay modes from which to choose. Classic modes like Team Deathmatch, Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag are still found but new modes like Vehicle Capture the Flag and Unreal Warfare are also on the menu. Since it’s been three years since the last Unreal Tournament game Epic opted to further entice lapsed players with a single-player campaign tournament mode and a level editor included in the box. It remains to be seen if the single-player campaign is compelling storytelling or just a tacked-on ladder with bot matches. Regardless you can’t fault Epic for trying to pack in as much as they can. Longtime fans have every reason to pick up Unreal Tournament 3 but the over-the-top action, vehicular carnage, impressive visuals, and tried-and-true gameplay should lure in new blood as well.