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Typically, Spring brings few big PC game releases. However, things are different this year. In fact, the next few months will see the release of a number of potential triple-A blockbuster games in a variety of genres: from racing, to strategy, to RPG, to action.   Here are our picks for the six hottest games due out between now and the start of summer.
Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed (EA)

Porsche gets the royal treatment in EA's amazing new racing game

Now arriving on store shelves, Porsche Unleashed is easily one of the best racing games to come along in years. As part of the Need for Speed series, Electronic Arts decided to focus on a specific company's cars for this revision of the game, and the result is the ultimate Porsche resource – Even featuring the original Porsche 356 from the 1940s.   With incredible production design (the main menu alone is impeccable!), exotic locations, and every Porsche imaginable, the game delivers on all you expect from a Need for Speed title.
Porsche Unleashed shines because it isn't just a typical racing game. In total there are three play modes, including factory driver and evolution. In factory driver, you are encouraged to push your Porsche to the limit (360s anyone?). Evolution mode, perhaps the most interesting game option, forces players to take care of their Porsche – If you wreak it on the course, plan to spend some big game dollars to get it fixed in the repair shop. Porsche Unleashed succeeds because it isn't just a quotidian racing game. This is the new standard when it comes to racing on the PC.

Shogun: Total War (EA)

Shogun redefines what an "epic battle field" is all about

I remember first seeing Shogun: Total War at E3 last year in Los Angeles. The game had been originally scheduled for release last summer, but at the show the developers confided in me that they wanted to take more time with the game to get it right. To Electronic Arts' credit, the game was pushed back and is now scheduled for release in the coming weeks. It looks like the extra time in development was well spent on this game that puts you in command of thousands of Samurai in 16^th century Japan.
When the last Shogunate has collapsed, Japan is divided into seven fiefdoms, and you are Daimyo (feudal warlord) at the helm of one of the factions. What sets Shogun apart from other real time strategy games is scope – The battlefield can be lined with up to 5,000 troops. With a fast, robust 3D engine, and the epic scale on which the battles are fought, Shogun has a lot of potential to finally do the large-scale real-time wargame right. But there's still a lingering question, and one that can't be answered until the game goes gold: What about micromanagement? With 5,000 troops on the screen, war could get overly complicated sooner rather than later.

Find out the next two games on the list, including Diablo II >>>