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Michael’s Most Anticipated Games of 2012
10. Resident Evil Revelations
This may be the game that gets me to finally buy a Nintendo 3DS, the system that is slowly increasing the number of titles in my interest. Set between the events of Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5, Revelations centers on the co-founders of the BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance) Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield, however it appears that Chris has gone missing and Jill, alongside her new partner Parker Luciani, have been sent in to find him. Revelations is one of three Resident Evil games set to be released in 2012, but it is the only one on the Nintendo 3DS so far. It’ll be interesting to see how Capcom makes use of the features on the 3DS.
09. Halo 4
It’s not only another Halo game, but the first of a new trilogy. What 343 Studios plans to do with this one is anyone’s but my guess. I don’t have a lot of investment in this story (I really, just really, couldn’t get myself to finish the second game’s campaign), but Halo always tends to be a fun experience, thought the latest installments make me skeptical as to where this series is going. Hopefully 343 Studios can rekindle a new hope in this series for me.
08. World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
My love-hate relationship with World of Warcraft started in 2007 and has lasted until now with me playing off and on. I hate the game because it’s far too much of a time-sink to give me time to enjoy all of the other games I want to play, but I love it because (when I’m playing with friends) I have a great time. I’m sure I will pick up Blizzard’s next expansion set for World of Warcraft to see the changes made to the game and experience the new content when it’s released, but how long I play it is up for debate.
07. Diablo III
I wish I could go back and see how many hours I logged playing Diablo II. If I’m not mistaken, that was the first ‘online’ game I played, at least extensively. Hours upon hours filled with all the dungeon-crawling a teenage boy could handle and you’d be right to guesstimate that number to fall somewhere in the ballpark of ‘a lot.’ Give me more please, Blizzard.
06. The Last Guardian
The announcement trailer for The Last Guardian was what sold me on it. It didn’t tell me much, but what it did tell me is that it was a video game trying to do something a little different. It is a game about exploration and it’s a game about over-coming obstacles in a surreal world where you play a little boy with the most unusual companion friend.
05. Resident Evil 6
Now, I’m not the biggest Resident Evil fan, having only played RE5 and watched someone play RE4, but Resident Evil 6 looks like a damn good package to me. Earlier titles had an entirely different play-style from the latest iterations that some preferred due to it being more of the horror genre and less about action, but RE6 aims to give players a chance to play both of those styles all in one game. This gives me a chance to experience the old as if it were new.
04. The Last of Us
The Last of Us announcement trailer brings up memories of the announcement trailer for Dead Island, a game from last year that completely failed to do what everyone assumed it was trying to do, which was be a game that was really pulled at the emotions of the player within the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse. The Last of Us generates the same feeling, but the trailer has something Dead Island’s did not: voice overs. Within the length of this short trailer for The Last of Us we have already been introduced to what I presume are the main characters of the game. The relationship that I hope to see develop over the course of the game between a ‘father’ and ‘daughter’ is what entices me to play The Last of Us. Getting to shoot zombies is just a bonus.
03. Borderlands 2
Borderlands was my favorite game of 2009 that I can recall. It packed the obsessive elements of progression in an RPG with the action of an FPS, humorous dialogue (a rarity in video games, in my opinion), and some of the most fun co-op gameplay I have ever played with my friends. Last year I wrote a piece about what Gearbox Software must do in order to improve upon Borderlands 1 and as the moment, not much is known about Borderlands 2 in detail, so all I can do is hope that Borderlands 2 isn’t something regurgitated from its predecessor.
02. BioShock Infinite
Being partial to stories that involve alternate dimensions and the like, when I saw Emily open ‘rifts’ (as I’ll call them for now) throughout the 15-minute demo of Bioshock Infinite from last year, I instantly fell in love with the game, but Irrational Games went beyond that and showed me the exciting hang-gliding gameplay I can expect to enjoy this year when it’s released and how Emily’s other-worldly powers play into that.
01. Guild Wars 2
I was a big fan of Guild Wars and its other standalone campaigns, but there was always something that seemed to be missing from a game that claimed it was a massively multiplayer online game. In order to feel like I was in a game with thousands of other players, I had to be stationed in select outposts and cities, but once I left those places with my party of adventurers, the “massive” component was gone. Some people preferred this, but to me the game played more like an online cooperative story with elements of an MMORPG. With Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet has not only done away with that problem, but has completely revamped what the MMORPG genre is. Questing has been killed in favor of “dynamic events” in which many, many players participate in events that are actually happening all the time in order to achieve a goal and reap the rewards. Even the combat is unlike the combat usually seen in the MMO genre. Instead of click an enemy and watching your character attack, while occasionally pressing one of your hotkeyed spells, Guild Wars 2 opts for more active combat. You are constantly managing your character in a fight and changing your combat style to fit the situation. I realize I’m not doing the game any justice by explaining it here, so I urge you to take a look for yourself.
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You should really play RE4. It is better than RE5. It may be a last gen game, but it was a late release so it actually looks and plays really nice. I know that you can even download it from PSN.
Ahhh! More to add to my long list of games to play.