2011 was an extremely good year for games. Frugal Gaming tells you what to expect from the next …
The rule of movies is, invariably, sequels get worse. The rule in video games is largely the opposite, sequels get better, sometimes markedly. With 2011 giving us some of the most amazing things we’ve ever seen on a flat-screen, and also some of the worst, here is why I think 2012 will be even better.
January is already set to get off to a running start with a new Soulcalibur (V), featuring our very own Ezio Auditore di Firenze getting all stabby in a beat-em-up with a great pedigree. Previews are showing it’s just as good as it ever was with less button-mashy balance issues than 2011′s big fighters Mortal Kombat and Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, and with more personalisation options too. It’s also worth mentioning the coming this year of UFC Undisputed 3, which given its deep and hugely satisfying combat system might just take the crown for best fighting game of 2012. The intriguing Neverdead is coming to show us how to roll around retrieving our lost limbs whilst killing everything that *will* die. It’s a fertile premise, and could be a real stunner as long as it doesn’t suffer from too many of the teething problems that new IPs so often do *CoughDeadIslandCough*.
From new IP to sequel-of-sequels, Final Fantasy XIII-2 brings its numerically eclectic continuation to market, the fans having made it perfectly clear to Square what was wrong with XIII, and Square promising to set it right with a proper sequel. They’ve opened up that depressing corridor and put back in all the missing exploration of its predecessor and, odd as this sounds, it just might be the best FF yet. And that’s just January.
'Making awesome easy'
All going to plan, February should bring the new and frankly ball-janglingly awesome looking SSX. If you were ever a fan of this franchise you should be excited for this. A properly good action game like this has been a long time coming and judging by how it looks so far, everything on the Super-Cool Spectrum is turned up to 11. Also, if Asura’s Wrath turns out to be as good as it could be, and half as mental as its trailer, it might just crush God of War under that MASSIVE finger.
And before we’ve even got to March, Playstation Vita arrives, with a host of genuine quality titles in tow. Obviously Uncharted: Golden Abyss is the big hitter for the west, but with Wipeout 2048, Little Deviants, Motorstorm RC, Modnation Racers and Everybody’s Golf, Sony seems to have everything covered right from the off. I’m sure there’s not been a better launch line-up for any console yet, and the Vita looks more and more likely to cause some desperate re-budgeting in Feb.
Release dates are notoriously unreliable so the rest of the year is much more fluid in terms of chronology; in fact by the time this is published, half the stuff I’ve already mentioned might have been cancelled, but c’est la vie. So ‘the rest of the year’ should include such heavy hitters as Max Payne 3 which, judging by previews, is going to be a genuine trailblazer. With Rockstar now at the helm, it’s shaping up to be a beautiful, thunderous festival of smashy-divey-shootey.
Max Payne, downing generic thugs and analgesia since 2001
There are several returning franchises that almost all look brilliant having had a year or two out to mature. Two big shooter franchises return with Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and Far Cry 3; Both previous titles were strong, but with the huge leaps forward in the genre made this year, they’ve got something to prove in the next. Devil May Cry or DmC as it’s now known returns, developed by the excellent Ninja Theory, and so far is looking exactly like it should if you, like me, couldn’t give a sh*t about Dante’s hair. If the combat is the right balance of awesome and ludicrous, who cares.
Lara Croft gets an origins tale for her trouble this year, as Crystal Dynamics give Tomb Raider a seriously Uncharted-looking makeover. You know its a proper reboot when they just call it the name of the first game again. Whether the new direction, causes any loss of what made Lara great, we’ll have to wait to find out. But here’s hoping that all that meticulous exploration stays in and, as with it’s titanic predecessors, everything remains a puzzle.
The positively mighty Irrational Games are almost ready to give birth to Bioshock Infinite, the real sequel to Bioshock; and if the trailers haven’t driven you mad with excitement, at least for a moment, you probably don’t like video-games. This is for many, a sure thing for game of the year and is bound to be one of the most intelligent, emotive and provocative games of 2012. Budget for this.
Oh dear, already in love with *another* woman that doesn't exist
If releasing the fastest growing MMO in history wasn’t enough for Bioware, they’re hitting us again with another sure-to-be-masterpiece in the positively immense Mass Effect 3. Anyone who played Mass Effect 2 (so that’s pretty much everyone then) will know that ME3 is a must buy if for no other reason than to continue the palpably operatic story of Shepard and his crew. The prologue of Mass Effect 2 is arguably one of the finest sequences in video game history, so who can’t wait to see it topped?
Another legend rises early this year as Agent 47 gets back in the business of imaginative termination and Hitman: Absolution finally gives us a full-on next gen Game of Death. The hype for this game is understandably huge, but if IO deign to make it even a little bit like Kane and Lynch I’ll stick to Blood Money.
More sequels and reboots that hang in the balance are Borderlands 2 which, if it fulfils all the potential of its good but flawed older brother, could be a real grower; Prey 2, The Darkness 2 and Prototype 2 are all looking to shed their weak, slightly ugly, repetitive prequels and get on with some quality slaughter in dimly lit alleys; and Gearbox (who seem very very busy this year) are trying to achieve impossible-since-1999 feat of making a GOOD Aliens game. Aliens: Colonial Marines has closely knitted itself into the stories of the films and as such already gains a lot of credibility with the die-hard fans, but it remains to be seen whether it’s actually fun.
Platinum Games doing what they do best, kicking ass to silly music
MGS Rising: Revengeance (not really a word) almost didn’t happen until Platinum games, of Vanquish and Bayonetta fame (two of my favourites), rocked up to save the day, but so far it seems it’ll be a far cry from Kojima Productions original vision. Still though, when Platinum games offer to make your game for you, you say ‘YES’. With the fate of several franchises hanging in the balance, its up to the developers this year to pull out all the stops and deliver on their promises. 2011 broke few promises (with few notable exceptions of course), so the bar is raised, lets see who can make the jump.
There’s obviously loads more in the pipeline, and we at Frugal Gaming will be keeping you constantly updated on the best pre-order deals, and the cheapest ways to play catch-up with your game collection and bag those one’s you missed last year. So happy new year and may it be pleasant and fun and above all frugal.
TRE (Thomas Edwards)
