My 2008 Game List

April 15th, 2008

Yesterday I mentioned an admittedly incomplete list of games to play that I had left either incomplete or unplayed. The question, of course, is will I have the time to play them given the upcoming releases this year? I started wondering, like I did last year in the summer, what games I’m really looking forward to this year. So, aside from my household’s obvious purchases of Mario Kart: Wii and GTA IV coming up in a couple weeks, what are the games that excite me in the upcoming months? As I did last year, I’ve tried to divide these games up into “tiers”, although I’ve relabeled them some. All release dates come from IGN.com and the versions indicated are NOT necessarily all the platforms a game is releasing on, but simply the platforms I would likely consider buying the games for. In almost all cases, I picked the 360 over the PS3.

Most exciting:

Mario Kart: Wii (Wii) - April 27

Ninja Gaiden II (360) - June 3

Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3) - June 12

Little Big Planet (PS3) - September

Gears of War II (360) - November

Hopeful:

Grand Theft Auto 4 (360) - April 29

Boom Blox (Wii) - May 6

Alone in the Dark (360) - June 24

Too Human (360) - August

Left 4 Dead (360) - August

Star Wars: Force Unleashed (360/Wii) - September

Killzone 2 (PS3) - September

Spore (PC) - September

Resistance 2 (PS3) - November 4

Bionic Commando (360) - Q3

Fable 2 (360) - Q3

Fallout 3 (360) - Q3

Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 1 (XBLA/PC) - Q3

Heavy Rain (PS3) - Q3

Banjo-Kazooie 3 (360) - Q4

Mirrors Edge (360) - TBA

Saboteur (360) - TBA

Metal Gear Online (PS3) - TBA

Echochrome (PSN) - TBA

Disaster: Day of Crisis (Wii) - TBA

Keeping an Eye Out:

The World Ends With You (DS) - April 22

Iron Man (360) - May 2

Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy (Wii) - May 6

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (WiiWare) - May 12

Bionic Commando Rearmed (XBLA/PSN) - May 16

Wii Fit (Wii) - May 19

Haze (PS3) - May 20

Bourne Conspiracy (360) - June 3

Lego Indiana Jones (360) - June 3

Secret Agent Clank (PSP) - June 17

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (360) - June 29

Lego Batman (360) - September

Tom Clancy’s Endwar (360) - September

De Blob (Wii) - September

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (DS) - September

Ghostbusters (360) - Q3

Street Fighter II HD Remix (XBLA/PSN) - Q3

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction (360) - Q3

Playstation Home (PS3) - Q3

Dead Space (360) - October

Fracture (360) - October

Prototype (360) - October

Tomb Raider: Underworld (360) - Q4

Alan Wake (360) - TBA

Silent Hill 5 (360) - TBA

Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) - TBA

Infamous (PS3) - TBA

White Knight Chronicles (PS3) - TBA

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers (Wii) - TBA

Sadness (Wii) - TBA

Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People (WiiWare/PC) - TBA

Far Cry 2 (360/PC) - TBA

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Some quick observations about this list:

• Unlike last year, other than Mario Kart Wii, there is not a whole lot I’m excited about on the Wii. My greatest hope on the Wii, actually, is that Boom Blox turns out well. The original trailer makes it look like it could be a joy to play, but may lack a cohesive direction or purpose. I’d be annoyed if it only turned out to be “Throw the thing at the thing” without a bit more strategy and puzzle solving to it.
• There are definitely a few titles within each of the tiers that I was perhaps slightly unfair to, either positively or negatively, based simply on gut feelings. Disaster: Day of Crisis, for instance, hasn’t really been shown much, nor does it have a firm release date yet, but since the concept initially sounded great I’m perhaps giving it a bit more of a boost by keeping it on my “Hopeful” list. Gears of War II is arguably a “Hopeful” game as well, but the first game was so polished and, in the end, plain fun that I kept it in the top tier. GTA 4 is an auto-buy for my household because Megan is a huge fan of the series, but even though I am potentially more excited for this version than I have been of past versions, it only made it to my 2nd tier simply because of my past experience with the series.
• Which game on my “Hopeful” list am I MOST hoping to turn out well? That’d be Too Human. I loved Eternal Darkness for the GCN, and despite all the trouble Silicon Knights has been going through for this game and the fact that many in the gaming community have seemingly already written the game off, I just can’t shake the fact that this company made one of my favorite games of the last generation (not to mention an extremely polished MGS remake, one of my favorite games from 2 generations ago). I really want this game to succeed, and in many ways it will be one of my biggest disappointments if it doesn’t.
• Many of these games probably won’t come out this year, which explains why some seemingly high-profile games are in my 3rd tier list (although many of them are also just there because they don’t have an automatic appeal to me, as well).
• As it is still early, there are probably lots of games still to be announced that could still come out this year. For instance, it’s probably extremely likely that we’ll see some sort of Call of Duty and Guitar Hero (not Aerosmith) later this year. Might we also see the second game in the Mass Effect trilogy, or a Jak and Daxter, or heck, maybe even a Zelda announced for later this year (and in Zelda’s case, released 2 years later)?
• Star Wars Unleashed for the Wii is, surprisingly, coming together quite nicely according to IGN. I had basically just figured that it would be another poor port of a more “traditional” 360/PS3 game, but if it’s actually really good, which version would I get? Given my current home theater setup, I’m leaning towards the 360 version. It’s worth noting, though, that given how much I liked controlling the Wii edition of Resident Evil 4 over the GCN version that this is actually a difficult decision. If they decided to port RE5 over to the Wii as well, that would be an even more difficult decision.
• Where oh where have all the PC games gone? As has been the case for the past few years, to the consoles, apparently. I have a few on my list, but the only one that seems like the best fit for the PC is Spore, and even that is supposedly getting multiple console versions. With even Valve now making their games for the consoles, it seems more and more like the Game PC may as well be a Blizzard-box (and Starcraft 2 doesn’t appear to be releasing this year).
• What did I miss?

Posted in Etc, Jeff, PC, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360 |