The games I've been surprised by alot these days have been coming from Europe, primarily eastern europe. Whats particularly great about it is that alot of the pc games coming from Europe have no concessions of being anything else than pc games... games like Evil Islands and SEa Dogs dont come off as console games (or games with pretensions of being ported for console)... and Europa Universalis DEFINITELY is not a console game... what im trying to say, i sense that some of these game developers TRULY like pc games ... playing the recent Operation Flashpoint demo (czech developers) made me believe that the eastern euopeans are not a flash in the pan... they are the future of pc games imo.

btw, one game that got overlooked and that i always plug was from former east germany, Urban Assualt... good game...

anyway, take a look at Etherlords, this game looks way ahead of Homm4, and its by the ppl who made Evil islands... a russian developer.

and look at serious sam... a quality action game with its own engine...

etc

I think part of the European developer charm or whatever is that they're typically small companies making one game at a time, with a relatively small team. They've got next to no burn rate because the rent don't cost much, PC development equipment is cheap (next to consoles), and they can just work on something for three years without going under.

How long did it take them to make Serious Sam again? Five years?

I find most of the European games generally have mediocre art (hey, artists and good art software are both expensive!) and they're often a little more buggy than usual. But they can, and often do, have great engines and stuff.

There's definitely a lot of talent in Europe and Australia, and I'd really like to see the general production values (and hence budgets) for some of their games go up. Well, and I'd like 'em to be less buggy, too. =)

Incubation (Germany), Darkstone (France), Commandos (Spain), Rage of Mages (Russia) and at least for a little bit, Odium (Poland) were among the games I've been most passionate about the last few years, regardless of country of origin. :)

Trouble is, except for Commandos to some extent, none of the games made a dent in the U.S. market to speak of. It seems like European developers have a fondness for "puzzles" that I enjoy, but that send most U.S. gamers screaming for their mommies.

Operation Flashpoint is the next east european game I really really want to play... its a game i never expected anybody to make (based on the demo). Tetris isn't the only game coming from east europe these days!

Though they haven't done too well in the US... I'm expecting they must have a following in eastern europe... it just seems that alot of the games coming out from there have a a feeling of coming from a certain scene... America otoh seems to have a general ffeling of being caught between consoles/computer games.

Last I read was that Europe is a better market (overall) for newer pc developers.

etc