I had a hard time determining my five most anticipated titles for 2010. This may have to do with the fact that not a lot of stuff has been announced for the second half of the year or the fact that maybe there’s just too many sequels coming out in 2010 that I’m not completely interested in. While I should be more excited about them, I’m thinking I’m just mildly anticipating them because many of them could potentially suffer from either a new development team behind the sequel or the first game wasn’t so great to begin with. I loved Dead Rising 1 and BioShock 1, but with them both being developed by different studios, who knows how they will turn out? And will Lost Planet 2 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 be that much better than their relatively mediocre predecessors? Of course, Assassin’s Creed 2 was an awesome follow-up, so there is hope.
In any case, to recap on my most anticipated titles for 2009, the list included: Steet Fighter IV, Dragon Age: Origins, Bayonetta, Alpha Protocol, and Starcraft II. Only the first two from my list made it out in 2009, and both were highly respected games. Bayonetta also just released at the beginning of the year to good reviews as well. Now that I have it in my hands, I hope to get some time with it and will share my thoughts on it soon. Alpha Protocol got a “stealth” delay to this year, meaning there was no announcement of any sort that it got delayed so some people even found out on the day of release that the game was delayed to summer 2010. While I anticipated that game a lot last year, this year it’s off my list. Starcraft II is still on my list for 2010, but what are the other four?
Final Fantasy XIII (360, PS3)
Outside of Starcraft II, Final Fantasy XIII is no doubt my most anticipated title of the year (from what has been announced so far as a 2010 release). I grew up on Final Fantasy, played through practically every single one of them (except Final Fantasy VIII – ugh for some reason I just could not enjoy that one). After the masterpiece that was Final Fantasy X on the PS2 and its lovable characters like Wakka, Riku, and Lulu, we had the MMORPG FFXI (which I tried briefly but did not enjoy), and the single-player MMORPG FFXII. I must have put in 60-70 hours into Final Fantasy XII, but at the end of the day I just didn’t really like it too much. The characters were not developed and the story was boring – FFXII ended up being a single player RPG that I could not get attached to, which is a big no-no for RPGs in my book. I’m hoping all of this changes when Final Fantasy XIII releases – sort of “righting the ship” and bringing the franchise back on course. I remember Square did the same thing when FFVIII was a little too out there for the Final Fantasy fans, so they brought things back to the classic gameplay with FFIX (which I did enjoy a lot). I hope FFXIII returns the Final Fantasy franchise to grace like FFIX did.
Resonance of Fate (360, PS3)
I like RPGs. For any of you longtime readers of the blog, you probably know that by now, and so I’m sort of concerned that Sega has decided to release Resonance of Fate on the same day as Final Fantasy XIII here in the states. It’s going to get demolished. But why is Resonance of Fate on my list of 2010 anticipated titles? It’s developed by tri-Ace, the studio behind the Star Ocean series, the Valkyrie Profile series, and Infinite Undiscovery. Contrary to what anyone will say about Infinite Undiscovery, I still enjoyed it a lot. Resonance of Fate seems to have a look and polish rivaling that of Final Fantasy XIII, and not only that, but the game is being directed by the planner of a couple of my favorite PS1 games: Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story. What also is a little different about this game is that it’s not going to be fantasy based, but rather, the characters are going to be using firearms in a more modern setting. The last time I played an RPG with firearms in a more modern setting was Parasite Eve, so I’m anxiously awaiting to see if Resonance of Fate takes elements of all of these classic PS1 RPGs I loved and brings them to the current generation.
Medal of Honor (360, PS3, PC)
This is a surprising pick for me, as I didn’t come up with this until I serious scanned the list of titles for release in 2010 for this article. EA’s Medal of Honor series has gone downhill ever since several employees left the team to create a studio named Infinity Ward, most famous for Call of Duty. The last Medal of Honor game released for this console generation, Medal of Honor: Airborne, was pretty bad. What has me most interested in this game is that EA has decided to bring the Medal of Honor franchise into modern day combat, having the game take place in present day Afghanistan. EA’s plan is to directly compete with the Call of Duty franchise, which means in order to do that, Medal of Honor will have to be a triple-A title. If EA wants to make a modern warfare game better than Modern Warfare 2, I’m all ears and I would love to see what they have in store. It’s also coming out at a good time – about a year after Modern Warfare 2 so maybe by then I’ll be ready to try something different for my online multiplayer needs. Apparently DICE, the studio behind the Battlefield games and Mirror’s Edge, will be handling the multiplayer for Medal of Honor. One thing that worries me is that with another franchise jumping into the modern combat train, does this mean the modern warfare genre will get over-saturated and go the way of WWII games? And is DICE going to do anything different for the Medal of Honor multiplayer besides stick Battlefield’s Conquest mode into it? I guess we will see this Fall.
Elemental: War of Magic (PC)
Stardock is my new favorite PC gaming development studio, and although I was less than pleased with Demigod, I think Elemental: War of Magic is the next big title from what the studio excels at: the 4X strategy game. I’m still slowly making my way through Stardock’s Galactic Civilizations II: Ultimate Edition, and prior to that I thoroughly enjoyed the Civilization games (not by Stardock though). Each of those franchises has the 4x strategy gameplay applied to different genres: Galactic Civilizations II goes more sci-fi with the space and future route, while Civilization 4 goes more accessible with the historical and modern route. Elemental: War of Magic will bring the 4x strategy genre into the fantasy realm, and as someone that enjoys my fair share of RPGs, I am quite interested in seeing how I will be able to apply 4x strategy to a game where magic and dragons exist. What’s also piquing my interest about the game is that I’ll be able to recruit heroes, explore dungeons, and amass treasure. Just how much of this game is 4x strategy and how much of it is RPG? While the cell-shaded graphics are a little bit offputting for me, I think this new combination of 4x strategy and RPG may be just the type of gameplay combination that I’m interested in trying out.
Starcraft II (PC)
Starcraft II was the only game that both cmfl3x and I had on our respective 2009 anticipated titles list, and it continues to remain as the only title in common for our 2010 anticipated titles list. I’ve played my fair share of RTS games ever since Starcraft was released over a decade ago, but since then, nothing has compared (although Warcraft III was excellent in its own way). Even today, I have Starcraft installed on my netbook and not only does it run perfectly, but it still is as good as when it first came out. Hearing the sound of your siege tanks switching into siege mode just doesn’t get old. What I also love about Blizzard is that the studio makes its games compatible with the Mac from day 1, so I’ll be able to still play this game with those of my friends that decided to convert to the mac route (sellouts!). Like Modern Warfare 2, I believe that Starcraft 2 has potential to bring several of my gamer buddies out of retirement and ready to go back into arranged team matchmaking. It can’t release soon enough.
