2009 was a grand old year for games, but right now it’s time to stop living in the past and look ahead to the games I’m looking forward too in the far flung future of 2010:
January – Mass Effect 2:
The Internet collectively cringed at the release of the notoriously bad Subject Zero trailer for Mass Effect 2, and I was seriously worried that Bioware had gone off the deep end. Then however, Dragon Age, another Bioware game with worryingly puerile marketing, came out and was absolutely outstanding. Mass Effect 2 appears to have spent a lot of time working on improving the pseudo-shooter combat that let the original down a little and it’s now looking extremely tasty. Plus is has Martin Sheen in it, which is always going to be a winner.
February – Star Trek Online
Card down gentlemen, I’m a big Star Trek fan, not the scary kind that dresses up and speaks Klingon, but I’ve watched a lot of it and I love it. Star Trek games have, by and large, been rather unimpressive, and I wasn’t a huge fan of Cryptic’s last offering, but everything we’ve seen of STO so far has shown off a lot of potential. The character creator is characteristically fantastic and the early noises suggest a lot of story driven missions, Cryptic have also hinted at some interesting non combat options, keeping in touch with the appeal of Star Trek.
March – Just Cause 2
Boom! Like all of us I love exploding things in games, and right now Just Cause 2 looks like the best explode ‘em up since Red Faction Guerrilla. The first game was silly, the second promises to up it by a factor of ten, it’s a grappling, parachuting, tethering, explodinating adventure, and I’d have it no other way.
March – A.P.B
No-one really knows what A.P.B is going to be, it’s some kind of bizarre open ended multiplayer almost-an-mmo-but-not-quite-gta-thing. What is certain is that it will have an unprecednented amount of freedom in the realm of user generated content.
‘Spring’ – Alpha Protocol
This game ticks all the boxes to be one of my favourites. RPG? Check. Emphasis on story? Check. Doing something new with the genre? Check. Good writing? This is Obsidian people, great writing. Alpha Protocol seeks to take the RPG into the realm of the spy thriller, promising you the choice to play as your own version of Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne or James Bond. I’ll be choosing the latter.
Novemberish – The Old Republic
I’m not a huge fan of MMOs in general, yet I’ve named two on this list, why? Because 2010 could well be the year in which MMOs grow up and start to acknowledge the story and narrative that means so much to single player RPGs and there is no better contender for this than Bioware’s The Old Republic. The masters of the single player RPG are finally going online, and they’ve got some great ideas about how to integrate narrative into the experience. The Old Republic could be one of the biggest things to happen to games in a long, long time.
So those are my most anticipated games of 2010, what are yours viewing public?
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Starcraft 2, assuming it’s actually for 2010, is the very very very top of every list of this kind that I can imagine :)
Some lovely choices there.
I’m mostly looking forward to Mass Effect 2 and Aplha Protocol myself. Here’s hoping the decision to hold back Alpha Protocol will give it some extra polish and make it extra excellent.
I’ve tried to Avoid everything I can on me2 but after seeing the trailer just before avatar in the cinema, it’s just at the front of my mind nagging me to watch every piece of footage I can! The music from that trailer has already made me decide to get the soundtrack, unless the collectors edition comes with it.
And I still need to decide on steam or 360, if I go with steam I’ll need to buy the original again and get some playthroughs in. Loved the game so much though that more playthroughs wouldn’t bore me in the slightest!
Only 35 days to go :(
I’m looking forward to Just Cause 2. I just bought the EIDOS pack, and Just Cause will be the first I play, beating Hitman several times over. I just love blowing things up.
I’m also looking forward to the Engie update, which I’m assuming will be out this year. With it being the last one, Valve by now should have worked out how to do it, and should do it well. Just make the achievements like the Spy ones please Valve.
What else I want to see I don’t quite know. With the THQ and Eidos pack now in my Steam list, and with L4D2 still to play properly, I think I’m sorted until about September.