First off, I'd like to thank 1up.com's 1UP Yours podcast! Without their podcast, this post wouldn't have been possible. Because I have the memory of a tiny mouse. As we move into the new year, though, there's already a crapton to look forward to. Some are definite buys, some are purely significant regardless of whether or not I care about them. Don't expect any particular order to the list.
The first one that pops to mind is Resident Evil 5. Some of the newer visuals have admittedly been a bit underwhelming, but what I'm really looking forward to is the online, two-player co-op. If they pull that off, that alone will make the game a must buy. Considering I played through RE4 something like 10 times, I think it's safe to say I'm a fan.
After playing Uncharted this year, I can't wait to play Uncharted 2 after seeing the trailer.
"That's my blood--That's a LOT of my blood."
The look on Nathan's face as he hangs from the end of that traincar is classic Indiana Jones. Screw Indy and the Martian Men, Uncharted is the new action hero franchise to follow.
As I wrote before, I'm conflicted about Street Fighter 4. I can't decide whether I genuinely like the game, or if it's more like admiration. I like the fine-tuned graphics and precise controls, and I bow to those who can master the game, but do I want to master it myself? I'm not sure. That said, I hope SF4 gets more recognition than SF3 did. It is taking things back to, well, basics, and fan reception seems good so far.
Heavy Rain, on the other hand, I've been looking forward to since the first trailer. Developer Quantic Dream was responsible for Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit, one the Almost Classics from the last generation, so I'm genuinely interested to see where this one goes. What I've seen so far has to be some of the best motion capture and modeling to date. I hope the whole game lives up to the trailers and demos.
Ghostbusters, one of my favorite movies, never scared me until earlier this year. That is, when I found out Activision "We only publish games that we can release every year on every platform" Blizzard didn't want to publish a movie IP that didn't have a movie attached to it. OMGZ TEH HORRAR!!!!111 Well, thanks to Atari, that long nightmare is over, and cats and dogs are no longer cohabitating. With writing and voices by the original guys, I just can't miss this one. Even if it suffers from Force Unleashed-itis (huge hype, great story, lackluster game), I'll still probably end up buying it. I think I've seen Ghostbusters more than any other movie, so there's a lot of nostalgia value for me, too.
Infamous and Prototype look to be in the same vein - that is, the Crackdown vein. If that ends up being the case, I can see myself wasting a lot of time with them. GTA4 became a little repetitive for my tastes, while Crackdown's over-the-top action managed to keep things interesting in spite of the singular "Whack the Gang Leader" directive.
I'm very curious about Batman: Arkham Asylum. It's a Batman game that's not connected to any particular movie, show, or storyline. Visually, it is much closer to the comics than anything else. The Joker and Batman are being voiced by their animated series actors, Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy. That is to say, this game has a LOT going for it. Even so, there's this... air about it. Something just doesn't feel right--I guess I worry that if it doesn't get cancelled halfway through development, it's going to be boring at best. I'm hopeful, but concerned.
Blizzard, whose incredible track record of critically-acclaimed, blockbuster games can only be matched by Valve, has two games on the way this year. One I look forward to eager and the other I couldn't care less about - though apparently I'm quite the minority in that feeling.
Diablo III looks like a truly worthy successor to the series and has the potential to get me gaming at my PC again. Starcraft II, on the other hand, is one of those games that I just don't "get." Wildly popular in South Korea and still doing well in the US something like 10 years after its original release, the original is the hallmark of the RTS genre. Command & Conquer and Warcraft may have come before it, but nothing compares to SC in sheer numbers of players. It almost makes me wish I wasn't even worse at Real Time Strategy than I am at Fighting games.
Then there's Bioshock 2 - Is that coming this year? I am not sure. Bioshock is almost one of those games that I wish they'd just leave alone. I mean if the sequel's good then that's great, but I worry that the ambition of the sequel won't include the philosophical questions asked by the first. That isn't to say it should deal with the same issues; just that it should have some sort of a philosophy, and ask the player some sort of question that doesn't have a good answer. The twist of the original simply can't be surpassed, no matter what, and I hope the team working on it doesn't go M. Night Shamalamadingdong on it and throw in an unnecessary twist.
So, what am I missing? There's a lot to look forward to next year!
The first one that pops to mind is Resident Evil 5. Some of the newer visuals have admittedly been a bit underwhelming, but what I'm really looking forward to is the online, two-player co-op. If they pull that off, that alone will make the game a must buy. Considering I played through RE4 something like 10 times, I think it's safe to say I'm a fan.
After playing Uncharted this year, I can't wait to play Uncharted 2 after seeing the trailer.
"That's my blood--That's a LOT of my blood."
The look on Nathan's face as he hangs from the end of that traincar is classic Indiana Jones. Screw Indy and the Martian Men, Uncharted is the new action hero franchise to follow.
As I wrote before, I'm conflicted about Street Fighter 4. I can't decide whether I genuinely like the game, or if it's more like admiration. I like the fine-tuned graphics and precise controls, and I bow to those who can master the game, but do I want to master it myself? I'm not sure. That said, I hope SF4 gets more recognition than SF3 did. It is taking things back to, well, basics, and fan reception seems good so far.
Heavy Rain, on the other hand, I've been looking forward to since the first trailer. Developer Quantic Dream was responsible for Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit, one the Almost Classics from the last generation, so I'm genuinely interested to see where this one goes. What I've seen so far has to be some of the best motion capture and modeling to date. I hope the whole game lives up to the trailers and demos.
Ghostbusters, one of my favorite movies, never scared me until earlier this year. That is, when I found out Activision "We only publish games that we can release every year on every platform" Blizzard didn't want to publish a movie IP that didn't have a movie attached to it. OMGZ TEH HORRAR!!!!111 Well, thanks to Atari, that long nightmare is over, and cats and dogs are no longer cohabitating. With writing and voices by the original guys, I just can't miss this one. Even if it suffers from Force Unleashed-itis (huge hype, great story, lackluster game), I'll still probably end up buying it. I think I've seen Ghostbusters more than any other movie, so there's a lot of nostalgia value for me, too.
Infamous and Prototype look to be in the same vein - that is, the Crackdown vein. If that ends up being the case, I can see myself wasting a lot of time with them. GTA4 became a little repetitive for my tastes, while Crackdown's over-the-top action managed to keep things interesting in spite of the singular "Whack the Gang Leader" directive.
I'm very curious about Batman: Arkham Asylum. It's a Batman game that's not connected to any particular movie, show, or storyline. Visually, it is much closer to the comics than anything else. The Joker and Batman are being voiced by their animated series actors, Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy. That is to say, this game has a LOT going for it. Even so, there's this... air about it. Something just doesn't feel right--I guess I worry that if it doesn't get cancelled halfway through development, it's going to be boring at best. I'm hopeful, but concerned.
Blizzard, whose incredible track record of critically-acclaimed, blockbuster games can only be matched by Valve, has two games on the way this year. One I look forward to eager and the other I couldn't care less about - though apparently I'm quite the minority in that feeling.
Diablo III looks like a truly worthy successor to the series and has the potential to get me gaming at my PC again. Starcraft II, on the other hand, is one of those games that I just don't "get." Wildly popular in South Korea and still doing well in the US something like 10 years after its original release, the original is the hallmark of the RTS genre. Command & Conquer and Warcraft may have come before it, but nothing compares to SC in sheer numbers of players. It almost makes me wish I wasn't even worse at Real Time Strategy than I am at Fighting games.
Then there's Bioshock 2 - Is that coming this year? I am not sure. Bioshock is almost one of those games that I wish they'd just leave alone. I mean if the sequel's good then that's great, but I worry that the ambition of the sequel won't include the philosophical questions asked by the first. That isn't to say it should deal with the same issues; just that it should have some sort of a philosophy, and ask the player some sort of question that doesn't have a good answer. The twist of the original simply can't be surpassed, no matter what, and I hope the team working on it doesn't go M. Night Shamalamadingdong on it and throw in an unnecessary twist.
So, what am I missing? There's a lot to look forward to next year!
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