By Ami Miljkovich, Pulse staff writer
2011 is fast approaching, and that means another year of possibly decent games to look forward to. Here’s my list of 2011 games that I’m most excited for. Also, sorry for starting the count at seven; I’d be scraping the ground below the barrel in order to get the list to 10.
7.) Batman: Arkham City
I generally take a “as long as Y is just a better version of X, I’ll probably get it” attitude towards sequels to games that I’ve played and liked, and that attitude is the main reason I’m looking forward to this particular title. There’s nothing to really expand upon there, so you just move on to number six now.
6.) Resistance 3
My enjoyment of the Resistance series is best described as “inexplicable.” Despite the fact that, at face value, this series just seems to be Playstation’s answer to Halo and Gears of War (with a little bit of Half-Life 2 and Call of Duty-aping to sweeten the deal), I find myself oddly fascinated by its plot and setting. Whether that fascination has any real basis will be decided by this third (and likely final) installment, and that’s really all there is to it. Also, I’m pretty stoked about the fact that I totally called it on Capelli being the new protagonist a few months before it was actually revealed; that kind of wild mass guessing is rarely ever correct.
5) Bulletstorm
My interest in this game mostly stems from a desire to fill a niche in my game collection that, up until now, I’ve almost completely neglected to fill. That niche is, of course, over-the-top pulpy action games, of which the only example in my gaming library that I can think of is Saints Row 2. So, seeing as Bulletstorm is being made by a developer whose only other game of note included a gun that fires shurikens and lighting in its weapons arsenal, with help from the creators of the Gears of War series, I’m sure “over-the-top” will be well in supply and I’m quite looking forward to diversifying my collection with it.
4) The Last Guardian
The story of a boy and his giant kitten-griffin thing; it’s the kind of thing we don’t get enough of in the usually gritty world of video games. I’m not even sure how to describe what this game looks like it’s going to be. There seems to be some unholy alliance of action-adventure, platformer, and pet simulator going on here and it has me genuinely stumped. But whatever it is, it’s the kind of thing that’ll either be a failure of epic proportions or one of the most impressive and unique games ever made. Since it’s Team Ico (the creators of Shadow of the Colossus and, well, Ico), I’d be willing to bet money on it being the latter.
3) Crysis 2
I never got to play the first Crysis, mainly because my home PC would have exploded in my face if I’d tried. But since this installment is being released for consoles as well as the PC, I’ll have ample opportunity to get my dirty little console-gaming fingers all over it. Besides the seriously gorgeous graphics (I want to hang the pre-release screenshots on my wall as if they were fine art, that’s how beautiful this game looks) and fast-paced shooty fun that I’ve seen in the gameplay footage, this game also sports the distinction of having talented sci-fi author Richard Morgan in charge of the writing and I’m fairly interested to see what he’s brought to the table.
2) Dead Space 2
Despite identifying as a fan, I’ll be the first to admit that Dead Space wasn’t perfect; arbitrary fetch-quests, samey environments, a very badly-utilized silent protagonist, lame boss fights, and a few other little niggling things served to make what could very easily have been a great game into just a really, really okay game. But, from what I can tell, it almost looks like Visceral just took all my complaints and made a “Things To Fix” list out of them; Isaac speaks now and has a much more proactive role in the story, the game takes place in a large city with plenty of different environments to explore, and the boss creatures this time around appear to be of the actually challenging variety. I’m even somewhat interested in trying out the new multiplayer, which is an unusual state of affairs, to say the least.
1.) Portal 2
Let’s not beat around the bush here; the original Portal is one of the best video games to ever grace the universe with its existence (its only flaw being that there wasn’t enough of it), and I was more than a little ecstatic to learn about the sequel. The new puzzle elements, longer length, new characters, and promise of more musical goodness from geek icon Jonathan Coulton are probably just scratching the surface as far as reasons to be excited about this game. Also, another game with a multiplayer mode that I’m actually interested in trying? I’m starting to second-guess my own identity here…
Anyway, let’s enjoy the New Year and hope that all these games are as good as I think they’re going to be.