City 16

Normally it wouldn’t be a big problem, you’ve got a few months at the start of the year to go through a few of the games in your backlog. Not so with 2010. On the face of it the publishers claimed that they were pushing games back because having everything release in the autumn was losing them money. Unfortunately they pushed everything back to the same time. In short, it hasn’t helped. Here are a few of the games either coming out in the next couple of months or already released in the last month. Note that this is just the games that I will almost definitely be buying, by no means all of the games that are actually coming out.

Bayonetta - I’ve played the demo to this and it was such an unrelenting assault of tongue-in-cheek visual flourishes and over-the-top action that I decided I must have it. A bit like Devil May Cry, but infinitely more mental.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - This is almost certain to be my Modern Warfare 2. I’ve already played the beta far more than I have MW2′s online mode, and that only had one map.

Final Fantasy XIII - Strange rumourings from Japan have been emerging that this might not actually be any good. I’m in the strange position of hoping this is true because, frankly, I don’t need another massive RPG to deal with right now. Looks pretty though.

Bioshock 2 - The original Bioshock was responsible for one of my favourite moments in gaming (not the moment you think). Supposedly the sequel increases the tactical options going into fights, which may persuade me to move off the trusty electric bolt/spanner combo.

Heavy Rain - Of course there’s a chance, however small, that this will disappoint. To be honest it’s hard to see how this could possibly live up to my expectations. One thing’s for sure though, with David Cage at the helm it will at least be interesting.

Just Cause 2 - Looks set to become my new favourite dumb open world game. Parachutes and grappling hooks mean unlimited stupid fun. That’s like science or something.

Mass Effect 2 – The RPG that is likely to overthrow all others for my attention. The first Mass Effect became something of a slog through generic planets towards the end but the main character reamains one of my favourite game characters for a long while.

As the credits roll I take a quick look at the games shelf. Now Assassin’s Creed II is out of the way (more on that soon) I realise that I’ve basically finished all the PS3 games that I had decided were worth persevering with. Good job me. Well not quite actually because upstairs on that other shelf and, by the same token, in that virtual shelf that is the Steam games launcher are a horrifying number of PC games yet to be properly explored. My PCs been somewhat neglected as a gaming platform of late. Below is a highlights package of the games I really need to find the time for. At this point I’m basically fishing for suggestions; if you spot a game on this list that is pretty much essential to play then let me know.

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars - Action-oriented RTS that is somewhat light on the ‘S’. I’m not expecting much from this, but a child-Phil once spent a huge amount of time playing its predecessor Tiberian Sun and the next game in the series, released this year, looks interesting.

Red Alert 3 – Action-oriented RTS that is somewhat light on the ‘S’. Is it wrong to want to play a game solely because of the cutscenes? I know it sounds stupid, but check out the intro:

Also the game sounds pretty fun too.

World In Conflict - Action-oriented RTS that is somewhat light on the ‘S’. Ok, so a theme may be developing. I seem to neglect strategy games these days, even the ones that don’t really require much strategic thinking. This one’s set in an alternate cold-war and has pretty explosions.

Dawn of War II - Action-oriented RTS that… Oh, enough of that. I actually got a good way into this but put it down again after being completely annihilated during a mission. That wasn’t really fair as my demise was clearly my own stupid fault. Since then the game has added a Last Stand co-op mode that looks pretty good.

A screen I didn't see too often.

Red Faction Guerrilla - The demo for this was terrible but, after noticing all the positive reviews that advised ignoring the terrible demo, I ran across a copy cheap enough that I took the risk. It appears to be about hammers… hammers on Mars.

Section 8 – Bought this during a Christmas sale. I’ve briefly dipped into the single player campaign which seems to have some interesting ideas at work, most notably that a single standard enemy can still be a formidable opponent. Online multiplayer seems to be the real meat of the game, though, but I’ve not yet checked in to the servers to see if they’re still active.

Deus Ex – There’s a giant list of gaming classics that I’ve not got round to playing yet. As something of a New Year Resolution I’ve picked two from that list to finish in 2010. This is the first of these and was recently voted as PC Gamer’s greatest game of all time.

Planescape: Torment – The second of my must-play classics. Generally regarded by the people who know about this sort of thing to have the greatest story in gaming. Now I think about it I probably couldn’t have picked two worse games in terms of length.

Kings Bounty: The Legend – Clearly that week of An Hour With posts didn’t work because most of the games featured still sit on about an hours play time. This one’s sitting on about an hour and a half so, all things considered, has done pretty well.

I'll admit my motivation for playing this decreased dramatically when the last of my bears died.

The Witcher - Depending on who you talk to this was either fantastic or a terrible, buggy mess. I like what I’ve heard about the depth of the moral decisions within the game. What I’ve heard about the sexual conquest card collecting mechanic leaves me a lot less enthusiastic.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl – Depending on who you talk to this was either fantastic or a terrible, buggy mess (hooray for trends). I’ve mitigated this somewhat by installing the 2009 Complete Mod, which provides noticeable improvements without completely changing the original experience.

Dragon Age: Origins – I’ve reached a familiar point. I now understand the systems that govern Dragon Age a lot better and I’m starting to wonder if I should restart with a slightly tweaked character. This wouldn’t be a large hindrance, as I’m only a few hours in, plus it would give me a chance to change my character’s hair so that she doesn’t look like 90% of the women in the game.

Much bigger than the Darkspawn problem is the problem of the unimaginative barbers.

If all this looks bad, you should see my pile of unread books.