Going into this year’s holiday gaming season, I am lacking enthusiasm. I don’t know if it’s because I’m busier now or if the current games this holiday season are just not as exciting as in the last couple of years. To be honest, most of the games I am about to call out I haven’t played yet, but based on buzz I am reading and demos I’ve played today’s entry will sort of be my knee-jerk reaction as to why I am not excited about what’s in store for the 2010 holiday season.

The problem is, we have so many sequels that are worse than their predecessors or sequels that don’t exactly blow their predecessors out of the water. This leads me to find practically all of them lacking in the excitement category that I have had in past holiday seasons. How many sequels are being released this holiday season? Let’s see!

The Force Unleashed 2
It seems like a lot of people were fans of the first Force Unleashed game, commenting about how cool the storyline was and all that. Unfortunately, I thought the gameplay was lackluster at best, as can be read in my review. If a game has a decent story but lacks gameplay – it might as well be a film or a TV show since it has no business being a game. With this second one, even critics are trashing The Force Unleashed II and calling it a simple cash grab so I’ll definitely be steering clear.

Medal of Honor
This big reboot to the franchise had the potential to be good, but instead fell on its face. I hear that the 6-hour campaign isn’t so bad, but people usually buy FPS games to play multiplayer. Sadly, that is where Medal of Honor doesn’t quite hold up so well. DICE, the developers behind Battlefield and Battlefield: Bad Company, were not the ones that developed the single player for Medal of Honor. But they were responsible for Medal of Honor’s multiplayer and so they implemented Call of Duty style gameplay in combination with Bad Company style gameplay. Medal of Honor multiplayer thus sits in this weird limbo between both major franchises, alienatinating fans of the two games it’s trying to merge. (I guess this game is maybe better than Medal of Honor’s true predecessor: Medal of Honor: Airborne, but I still consider it more of a sequel for Battlefield since the multiplayer was created by DICE.)

Fable III
Apparently, Fable III is a simpler version of Fable II, disappointing fans of the second one. On top of that [MINOR SPOILER AHEAD], the game has angered many players who have made it to the end because it screws them over without even giving them a chance to see it coming. Am I really excited to play this? I was, but maybe I should just go back and replay Fable II instead?

Fallout: New Vegas
Yeah, I’m putting New Vegas on the list of “lackluster” sequels even though I bought it, haven’t even played it yet, and of course I’ll probably end up enjoying it. I loved Fallout 3, yet I was never really too interested in picking up Fallout: New Vegas since there was barely any buzz about it. Is it really all that different from Fallout 3? It’s still marred by all sorts of technical issues that Fallout 3 contained (such as freezing, memory leaks, etc.), but this time around, it doesn’t have the gigantic leap from Fallout 2 to Fallout 3 to counterbalance it. I guess I won’t know until I give New Vegas a spin, but even now, it doesn’t really feel like a fresh sequel, since it’s more of the same. In this case for me, more of the same is good since I loved Fallout 3, but in terms of excitement? Not too much.

DJ Hero 2
cmfl3x picked this one up and seems to be really enjoying it, but from my point of view, I am not excited with it. Unlike the other sequels already mentioned on this list, DJ Hero 2 has been getting reviews that seem to indicate that it is a slightly better game than its predecessor. But does it really feel like a fresh sequel? A couple of new, yet non-revolutionary features and a new soundtrack are enough to call the game a sequel? Did the gameplay really change that much between the first and the second one such that a sequel needed to have been released just one year after the first? And what’s with the lack of compatibility between the soundtracks of the first and second game? I guess Activision wants to quickly make as much as it can off of DJ Hero before DJ’ing also goes the way of Guitar Hero.

Rock Band 3
Rock Band 3 is a game that got so many great reviews that I considered buying it. Unlike DJ Hero 2, Rock Band 3 really brings all sorts of new and innovative features over Rock Band 2. Rock Band 3 still has major problems going against it though, even if it’s nearly a flawless game. The first is that I still can’t help but feel tired about the entire music game genre. If I don’t feel like partaking in Rock Band 3′s major new features such as picking up the key-tar or learning to play with real musical instruments, is Rock Band 3 really that different from the second one? Some even complain that something like 20% of the songs on the Rock Band 3 soundtrack are already present in other music games too. I gave the demo a try this past weekend, and it honestly didn’t feel any different than its predecessors. I think the feature about Rock Band that I enjoy the most – being able to play drums on my favorite songs, doesn’t exactly require me to pick up Rock Band 3 to do so. Maybe that explains my lack of excitement for Rock Band 3.

Call of Duty: Black Ops
The verdict is still out on this one, as there is a lot of potential for good and bad. Good: currency system so players have their own choice as to what they want to unlock. Bad: Treyarch is the developer – enough said. Good: Zombie mode returns. Bad: Setting is not present day, so we may end up with antiquated or goofy stuff (i.e. ray gun). At the end of the day, Black Ops is another Call of Duty game in an “off year” since it’s not made by Infinity Ward. It should be a decent title, but I don’t think Modern Warfare 2 is even old yet by this point. Can both games co-exist?

Holiday 2010 vs Holiday 2009 & Holiday 2008
So what do we have in terms of new IPs to enjoy this holiday season?The 4-6 hour single player game Vanquish? Enslaved: Oddyssey to the West – a game with a fine storyline, but bland gameplay mechanics? Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – a Japanese franchise given the God of War gameplay makeover (not a compliment in my book) from a Western studio? Or how about Majin & the Forsaken Kingdom – a Japanese developed title that probably won’t even make a dent in the Western market due to its simplistic execution? I’ve played demos to nearly all of these titles, and none of them had my blood pumping.

Compare this year’s holiday season crop with the past couple holiday years. Last season we got to play some really strong sequels: Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed II, and Left 4 Dead 2. There were also several new IPs that delivered: Brutal Legend, Borderlands, DJ Hero, and Dragon Age: Origins.

Back in 2008, we had some big sequels as well: Fable II, Far Cry 2, Saints Row 2, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, and arguably, Call of Duty: World at War. And again, the original IPs then were strong too, thanks to titles like Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge, and Left 4 Dead.

It’s sad that this holiday season, I feel like I’ll just be playing the games to go through the motions, and won’t have the kind of excitement I used to have these last couple of years. Having said all this, I’ll probably end up getting all of this holiday season’s releases anyway – especially if Amazon and other retailers go with some crazy sales around Black Friday. Fable III may be worse than its predecessor, but if I can get it for $20, I guess that’s all right.

One of my friends asked me last night if I was going to trade in Halo 3: ODST now that I had the 1000 in it. He was saying it gets something like $35, which is pretty good considering we ended up getting it for around that (or even less) when it first came out. In the past, I used to trade in practically any game I got all the Achievements I wanted in and moved onto the next game in my queue.

Over just this past year alone, I’ve started winding down on my gaming tendencies (yes, it’s hard to believe but I’m less hardcore today than I was years ago), and actually started missing games I had gotten rid of. So I started rebuying games that I knew I would want to replay again at some point, just for fun. Looking at my 360 collection today, I’ve realized that more than half of the games I currently own I’ve sold and reacquired.

Nowadays, I’ve decided that no matter how good of a deal it is to trade in/sell a game that I enjoyed, I won’t get rid of it since the amount of work it takes to reaquire the game just doesn’t make up for the nice little “deal” I got when I sold it. What majorly sucks is that several of the games I end up wanting to reacquire turn into Platinum Hits titles, and I hate that design. Therefore, I’m forced to scour used game bins or find people online to buy from that can get me non-platinum hits versions that are not all scratched like crazy. I feel like I’m in some sort of game rebuying netherworld where I’m paying for my mistakes. I owned these games in mint condition and now I’m spending time trying to track these same games down that will no way be in as good condition as when I owned them. Why couldn’t I just have been happy with my original copies and not sell them in the first place?

Currently, I’ve been spending the last few weeks trying to rebuy the following games:

Mass Effect – I actually want to replay through this before playing the sequel coming out early next year, but the tough part is of course finding a non-platinum hits version in great condition.

Assassin’s Creed – Like Mass Effect, I do want to play this game again before the sequel releases next month but have to find a non-platinum hits version in great condition.

Fable 2 – Platinum hits was announced to be released in January, so I still have time to reacquire this game and I know I will want to play through it again before Fable 3 releases.

The Orange Box – I actually have cravings from time to time to play Team Fortress 2, and while I own it on the PC, people on the PC are too hardcore (clans and whatnot) so I just want to play it casually with my 360 controller. Plus, I figure I will want to play Portal again from time to time.

Once I successfully repick up these titles, I’ll only have a few left to go. Good thing I didn’t sell Halo Wars since I do have cravings to play that game too. In any case, that’s my simple warning to you – if you feel like at some point you may want to replay a game (just because it was amazing, you’ll miss it, or a future sequel gets you to want to replay its predecessor, etc.), consider holding onto it. I want to spare you this ordeal that I’m going through today…

I had to laugh at espion4ge’s post last week detailing Halo 3: ODST’s kung-fu grip on his friends list. Last week’s release, combined with the out of this world reviews for the upcoming Uncharted 2 on PS3 got me thinking about what games are system sellers on the big gaming systems (especially because I’ve felt tempted to buy a PS3 lately, though I have resisted that urge for fear of death). Some of these games justify the very purchase of the system itself, which are “must have” games for their respective systems. Anyway, I only own a 360, Wii, and DS, but I did my best to compile these system sellers anyway.

Xbox 360

System Seller: Halo Series
Halo is basically the reason why Microsoft is still in the games’ market today. Halo and Halo 2 singlehandedly saved the original Xbox from turning into the next Jaguar or 3DO, and ODST just showed once again that Halo is as popular as ever. Love it or hate it, Halo sells boxes.

Must Have Exclusives: Gears of War Series, Fable Series
A lot of people who don’t like Halo love Gears of War, the original cover based 3rd person shooter. It’s bloody and full of machismo which makes it pretty popular. Fable 2 (and the recently announced Fable 3) are also incredibly popular for the wide range of choices they give the player: the quintessential western RPG.

Upcoming: Mass Effect 2, Halo: Reach, Fable 3

Playstation 3

System Seller: God of War III
People probably will disagree, and it’s bit a ridiculous since this game isn’t even OUT yet, but I think God of War III is PS3′s system seller. None of PS3′s exclusives can really compete with Halo’s grip on the gaming community, but God of War comes close. I know people who bought a PS3 just in anticipation of this game, and they’ve been waiting ever since. The time is near…

Must Haves: Uncharted Series, Little Big Planet, Metal Gear Solid 4, Killzone Series
PS3 makes up for its lack of a killer app with a bevy of very strong exclusives. Resistance, MLB: The Show, and Gran Turismo could all be added to this list. The Uncharted series is incredibly well reviewed and hailed as the next Tomb Raider, but for some reason, it doesn’t seem as popular (to me at least) as it deserves. And I still don’t get why Little Big Planet didn’t hit it big, but Sony’s trying to remedy that with the sequel.

Upcoming: Heavy Rain, Little Big Planet 2, God of War III, Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Note: I am more interested in Heavy Rain than any other game on the horizon, including Modern Warfare 2. Hopefully that game turns out better than the last game I was intrigued by did. I’m looking at you, Scribblenauts.

Anyway, it’s weird to start with 2nd and 3rd place, but 360 and PS3 are the “hardcore” systems. I’m sure I may have missed some exclusives. If I’m being honest, I actually think PS3 has more to offer in terms of exclusives. But Halo still trumps them all for me, plus I find Xbox Live so superior that I have no problem paying for it. I’m always checking out what my friends are playing, and it does a great job of building more of a gaming “community.” But to each his own…

Next week: Wii, DS, and PSP. Until then, what’d I miss? And please, if you own a PS3…tell me what’s awesome. I’ve only played MGS4.