I guess it's a bit late for this article with two months of 2012 already behind us but better late than never I suppose. As I've said about 20 times already, 2011 was an amazing year for gaming; one of the best in recent memory. The gaming industry will be hard pressed to make 2012 as good and I think it just might happen. Here are the games that I am most excited about in 2012.
NOTE: it probably goes without saying, but all of these games aren't guaranteed to come out this year but they are all scheduled to. The list is in chronological order for games that have relatively solid release dates, then alphabetical for games that are listed as TBA 2012.
Mass Effect 3
Bioware, Electronic Arts
360, PS3, PC
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| FALCONE PAWNCH! |
Oh, wow. We're gonna have to wait a while for this one, what with it coming out TODAY and all. Sarcasm aside, the first two
Mass Effect games are two of my favorite games ever. The first game was THE game that I bought my 360 for, so yeah, I'm a fan.
Mass Effect 3 is unfortunately doing a lot of the bullshit that I hate: tacked on multiplayer, day one DLC, and stupid unnecessary voice commands that you need a kinect to use for whatever reason so I don't know if they're even present in the PS3 and PC versions. I could be wrong but last year's E3 seemed to imply that.
Regardless of those annoyances, I still really wanna play the game, and hopefully it'll be as big of an upgrade to the second game as that game was to the first. That sentence made no sense. Anyway, the demo was pretty impressive, though they changed what female Commander Shepard looks like to sex the game up some more I guess but at least she's getting some more attention. And no. I don't call her FemShep. That's moronic and sexist.
For anyone unfamiliar with the series, you can choose to play as a male or female character, though both are referred to as Commander Shepard in game with idiotic fans constantly calling female Shepard "FemShep." I really hate other gamers sometimes. Don't even get me started on that
Street Fighter X Tekken tournament...
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Silent Hill: Downpour
Vatra Games, Konami
360, PS3
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| HURRAY! Quick time events! Everyone loves those, right? |
I'm kinda torn on this one since Konami has bullshitted me so much lately but it's a
Silent Hill game so I'm obligated to check it out. Downpour has a few more concrete things going against it too I'm afraid. Once again Konami outsourced the game to a western developer, Vatra Games whose only previous credit is a remake of
Rush 'n Attack that was in development at the same time as
Downpour and wasn't that well received by reviewers.
Downpour is also the first game in the series that is not scored by Akira Yamaoka who I consider to be an irreplaceable part of the
Silent Hill franchise. The game IS being composed by a competent composer at least, Daniel Licht, the composer of Dexter and a shit load of horror films.
Also going against
Downpour is the fact that Korn is doing the theme song to the game. What is this I don't even... To be honest, I used to be a fan of Korn when I was a teenager and I don't think they're that bad to this day. The only problem is, THEY SHOULDN'T BE DOING ANY MUSIC FOR A
SILENT HILL GAME.
Two last things that I should mention: Gameplay and graphics. The gameplay kinda looks like a combination of
Homecoming's combat and the fast paced exploration of
Shattered Memories. I never criticize the gameplay of a game that I have yet to play for myself so I will withhold judgment on that one. Lastly,
Downpour's visuals look REALLY dated. Though the graphics engine may not be fully completed and graphics don't really matter to me but I DO notice when they're crappy.
Also, no,
Book of Memories isn't on the list because I don't have a Vita and probably won't be getting one for some time. I still don't have a damn 3DS.
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Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
Slant Six Games, Capcom
360, PS3, PC
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| What is even happening in this screenshot? |
Let me tell you a bit about Capcom. Capcom was one of my favorite developers until last year. A huge number of my favorite games of all time were made by them. So, what happened last year that I'm bothering to type this crap? They decided to NOT release the newest
Ace Attorney game in the United States. They're officially on my shit list after that. I'm really about as close as I've ever come to boycotting a publisher, and Capcom was just about the last one that I would have thought about doing that to. Yes. I love the
Ace Attorney series that much.
Another series that I love is
Resident Evil and by all rights, I should hate this game. Even disregarding my new found anger at Capcom, this game is just so weird that I should despise it. It messes with the story of
Resident Evil 2 which is my second favorite game in the series, and it looks like a crazy multiplayer party game. For whatever reason though, I really wanna play it.
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Prototype 2
Radical Entertainment, Activision
360, PS3, PC
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| I just love this shot. Ahh, the simple joy of a man with a sword for an arm jumping thousands of feet into the air to attack a helicopter. |
I don't know how this game even exists with Activision's policy of only releasing games that can be made into a franchise that they can "exploit every year." I guess it isn't an actual company policy and I may be misquoting Bobby Kotick so please don't sue me for slander, Activision. I understand that you are a multimillion dollar corporation and you're trying to run a business but if that means turning works of fiction into products with no love put in them, then maybe you should rethink your priorities.
My point is,
Prototype came out three years ago so I'm surprised that a sequel was green-lit this late. Regardless of any technicalities like that, I loved the first
Prototype. It's gameplay is some of the most absolutely bat shit insane I've ever experienced and it made playing as a character that is essentially a villain really fun. Yes, I know that there are many games that you play as the villain that came out before.
Prototype just happens to be one of my favorite games in that category.
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Max Payne 3
Rockstar Games
360, PS3, PC
 |
| For this game, the part of Max Payne will be played by John McClane. |
Finally, a game that I have no complaints about. My love of the first
Max Payne is already well documented on this blog and although it isn't being developed by Remedy Entertainment, I'm still confident that
Max Payne 3 will be great. Rockstar has yet to disappoint me in years. In fact, I think the last game published by them that I didn't like was
State of Emergency which I blame on that game's crappy developer.
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Dragon's Dogma
Capcom
360, PS3
Dragon's Dogma is a game that I'm interested in simply because of its concept. It looks like
Monster Hunter in a more traditional fantasy setting with some
Shadow of the Colossus mixed in. The only problem I have with it is that the demo they were showing at last year's E3 was ROUGH. You have NPC partners who constantly comment on things going on in battle and many times the game will go into slow-mo and zoom in on the NPCs as they say canned lines, interrupting the flow of battle. Ouch. If they get rid of that and make it so they stop repeating themselves so damn much, it should be pretty great.
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Lollipop Chainsaw
Grasshopper Manufature, Warner Bros. Interactive
360, PS3
 |
| Okay. Including an Evil Dead themed bonus costume is one way to get me on board. |
The only reason this game is on the list is because it's a Grasshopper/Suda51 game. If it wasn't, I would write it off as another shitty looking, overly sexed up beat 'em up like
Onechanbara. That's the power of Suda51 though. He can make just about anything and I'll at least have some interest in it. Well, except for
Diabolical Pitch. Screw Kinect.
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The Last Story
Mistwalker, XSEED Games
Wii
 |
| OMFG! Learn 2 hold aggro, nub! |
This one is actually pretty sad. Nintendo, in all their infinite wisdom, decided not to publish
The Last Story in the United States, so XSEED Games had to do it for them, well over a year after the game came out in Japan. What is so sad about it is the fact that
The Last Story was developed by Mistwalker who did a fantastic job with
Lost Odyssey, so I was looking forward to this game's American release.
If a relatively small company like Atlus can constantly translate and release text and dialogue heavy games in the United States, then freaking Nintendo should be able to. Where the hell is all that Wii and DS money going? Atlus managed to translate and release
Persona 4 in the United States, a game with a TON of text and voiced dialogue, just
5 months after its Japanese release. And they did a damn good job of it too. This is why Atlus is my favorite video game company. Because they care. Man, I am really good at getting off topic. Or really bad at staying on topic. It's a glass half full/empty thing I guess.
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Anarchy Reigns
Platinum Games, Sega
360, PS3
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| This was one of the only screens I could find without a massive watermark on it. It also happens to be the best one overall, at least in my opinion. Just LOOK at those freakin' gloves. |
I have loved all of the games developed by Platinum Games, with the exception of
Infinite Space which I have yet to play, but I'm a bit shaky on this one however because it may or may not be a multiplayer only game and I couldn't care less about that. I'm keeping my hopes up though.
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BioShock Infinite
Irrational Games, 2k Games
360, PS3, PC, Vita? (Not sure about this one. It's on GameFAQs though.)
BioShock Infinite is my third most anticipated game of the year, falling just behind two later entries. I loved the hell out of the first two
BioShock games and every game (that I've played) developed by Irrational for that matter.
BioShock Infinite looks to be just as good, if not better than its predecessors, with an intriguing plot and some amazing looking gameplay.
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Assassin's Creed III
Ubisoft
360, PS3, PC, Wii U
I mentioned the
Assassin's Creed series briefly before but I'll talk a bit about it again. I HATED the first game but I forced myself to beat it for whatever reason and it may be the game that I hated the most that I played all the way though. When
ACII was announced, I couldn't care less. Then the reviews came out and I had to play it. I'm SO glad that I did because
ACII fixes just about everything that I disliked about the first game.
Brotherhood made the series even better and although I have yet to play
Revelations due to a lack of funds, I'll pick it up ASAP.
Assassin's Creed III was already high up on my must play list and after the trailer that was released yesterday, it shot up to a close second on my most anticipated games of the year. For anyone unaware,
ACIII ditches the Renaissance era Italy setting that it has used for the last three main series games in favor of an American Revolution setting. Hoooooly crap. I'm a big fan of American history so the thought of
Assassin's Creed being set during our war of independence is just mind blowing to me. This game can't come out soon enough!
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Resident Evil 6
Capcom
360, PS3, PC
 |
| SURVIVAL HORROR! |
Wow, two
Resident Evil games in one year. Actually, it's three since
Revelations just came out. Whats with all the games using the subtitle "Revelations?" If they're trying to reference the
Book of Revelation then they need to take that "S" off the end. Anyway,
RE6 looks to be quite promising.
Soon after the debut trailer was released, fans did a damn fine job of decoding a great deal of it with many saying that there are at least three playable characters: Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy and an unknown newcomer who is voiced by the great Troy Baker. They have also noted the fact that Chris' gameplay looks to be more action oriented like
RE4 &
5 while Leon's looks like a more traditional survival horror game like
RE games prior to
4.
Day-um, son! That's a lot of information gathered from a trailer that's only a few minutes long. Needless to say, I'm anticipating this one quite a bit.
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Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
thechineseroom, Frictional Games
PC, Mac, Linux
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| No screens available for this game yet; just concept art. Creepy, creepy, concept art. |
Amnesia: The Dark Decent is one of my favorite games of 2010 but I also HATE it with a fiery passion for how damn scary it is. It's gameplay, story, visuals, and sound design are all fantastic but God dammit is that game frightening as all hell. Seriously. That chase music haunts my freakin' nightmares. Simply put, it's a game that I have a bizarre love-hate relationship with.
Just from its creepy title,
A Machine for Pigs sounds like it'll be just as horrifying as its predecessor. The story is that an wealthy man from England was exploring some ruins in Mexico when he became severely ill and began to have cryptic nightmares about a horrifying machine. He recovers months later and awakens to the roar of a huge machine starting. Holy crap. I don't know if I can handle it. I don't know what it is about
Amnesia. I can play just about any horror game, aside from
Silent Hill 2 &
3 and
Afraid of Monsters, with no problem at all.
Amnesia just hits all the right scary buttons I suppose.
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Brothers in Arms: Furious 4
Gearbox Software, Ubisoft
360, PS3, PC
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| This was the LEAST violent screen I could find of this game. |
It's
Inglourious Basterds the game.
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Diablo III
Blizzard Entertainment
PC, Mac, (Possibly consoles. Only a rumor)
Diablo II is a game that I spent so much time in that it must be in my top 5 most played games, if there was any way to count all the hours that is. As I said in my last article,
Diablo III is my most anticipated game of the year and after playing the beta, it's still number one. It was supposed to come out in 2009 so my hopes of it being released this year aren't sky high but it seems to finally have a relatively solid release date.
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DmC: Devil May Cry
Ninja Theory, Capcom
360, PS3
This game has had a lot of hate thrown at it for various reasons but I think the idea of Ninja Theory developing a
DMC game is just amazing. Strangely enough, I never beat
Heavenly Sword and I've never even played
Enslaved, but I'm still anticipating this one pretty highly.
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The Last Guardian
Team ICO, Sony Computer Entertainment
PS3
At this point, I'm worried that this game may never come out with the shake up that happened at Team ICO, but either way, The Last Guardian looks incredible.
ICO and
Shadow of the Colossus are absolute masterpieces so I have pretty high expectations for this game.
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The Last of Us
Naughty Dog, Sony Computer Entertainment
PS3
We don't know much about this one yet and we don't even know for sure that it's coming out this year, but I do know one thing: Naughty Dog is one of the most talented development teams out there so regardless of when it comes out, we can expect quality.
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Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
Platinum Games, Kojima Productions, Konami
360, PS3, PC? (Again, it's on GameFAQs.)
What the hell does revengeance mean? Anyway, like I said in the
Anarchy Reigns entry, I love Platinum Games and a
Metal Gear game made by them has gotta be amazing, though it is a bit worrisome that Kojima Productions handed the game off to them in what seems to be pretty late into development. Platinum apparently restarted the development of the game from scratch so who knows how it'll turn out.
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Prey 2
Human Head Studios, Bethesda Softworks
360, PS3, PC
I am one of the three people that really enjoyed
Prey and thought it was pretty innovative. It did amazing things with portals over a year before
Portal came out and had an interesting set of alien weapons rather than the usual pistol-shotgun-assault rifle set we see so often nowadays. Hmm. Why didn't development of
Duke Nukem Forever get handed to Human Head? Not that Gearbox is a bad developer or anything, but Human Head proved that they could finish off 3D Realms' sloppy work once so why not let them do it again? Guess they were too busy with
Prey 2 at that point.
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Tomb Raider
Crystal Dynamics, Square Enix
360, PS3, PC, Mac
If there was one thing the
Tomb Raider series needed, it was a reboot. I thought that the PS1 era
Tomb Raider games were simply wretched, though the newer ones were okay. In any case, rebooting the series to a cinematic,
Uncharted style game is probably the best thing that they could've done so count me in for this one.
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Torchlight II
Runic Games, Perfect World
PC, Mac
Oh, wow. I'm excited for a point and click RPG sequel. What a surprise. The first
Torchlight has been a pretty amazing game to pass the time until
Diablo III finally decides to come out so a sequel would be lovely, thank you.
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One last thing I should mention is the indie game scene. As far as I know, they haven't announced anything, but I would love to see what Final Form Games (developer of
Jamestown) and Supergiant Games (developer of
Bastion) are up to. Man, where am I gonna get all the money for this shit? I need a cheaper hobby...
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