You’ve just survived 2010. Your wallet has taken a beating from being practically forced to buy titles for your machine out of pure awesomeness. Halo: Reach, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Heavy Rain, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Mass Effect 2, Starcraft II, Bayonetta, Red Dead Redemption, God of War III, BioShock 2, Medal of Honor, and the list continues - and that didn’t even include the price you paid if you wanted to get the Rock Band 3 keyboard, Kinect or the PlayStation Move.
Here we come into the final stretch, as we examine some of the games that will be hitting 2011 that will be best-sellers. There are some platform exclusives, some re-imaginings, and one major licensed MMO that many fans are drooling over.
The Sims has one of the biggest fan bases in PC history. Since 2000, there have been two sequels and dozens of expansions and innumerable fan-made content. Even though the series has evolved bit by bit throughout the years, the gameplay has remained basically the same: hand-holding your Sims through daily life, including their more biological needs. The Sims Medieval changes that.
The Sims Medieval puts the iconic characters into a romanticized Middle Ages scenario, filled with kings, queens, knights, mages, witches, serfs, bards and so on. The change here is that it’s more of a strategy/roleplaying game than a human life simulator. You have to choose how to develop your kingdom, make open-ended decisions on threats, situations and romance, and what sort of kingdom you want to run through the actions of your pawns. This game will be a huge seller, and may even draw some hardcore gamers in who may be intrigued by the new gameplay options. The game will be released in March 2011.
Platform: PC
S.O.C.O.M. was the multiplayer game to play on the PlayStation 2. While other gamers were playing games like Ghost Recon on the PC and Xbox, PS2 gamers were fulfilling their inner soldier with S.O.C.O.M., even buying a hard drive for the console to play it.
The series finally arrives on the PlayStation 3 after the last game, S.O.C.O.M. 3: Navy SEALS was released for the PS2 in 2006. S.O.C.O.M 4: Navy SEALS has had a rough development cycle, being delayed twice, pushing its 2010 release date into July 2011. The game was partially delayed due to Sony’s insistence on adding Move support to the game. While it’s doubtful the Move feature will be used by players - especially online - the long-running series will finally see the light of day, and will be a nice alternative to the straight-up multiplayer shooters like Killzone 3 and M.A.G.
Platform: PlayStation 3
Star Wars Galaxies was the first MMO to use the Star Wars license. To say it was a failure is harsh, since it endured some bizarre design decisions. If that wasn’t enough, Sony Online Entertainment crippled the game by completely revamping the entire game, outraging and alienating its core fans. Despite all of this, the game trudges on, but that may end when BioWare releases its own Star Wars MMO, based on their legendary roleplaying game, Knights of the Old Republic, which captured the Star Wars universe like no other game before it, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact it took place 4000 years before the films.
Star Wars: The Old Republic will be unusual in that the game will be extremely narrative, with fully-voiced dialog and Mass Effect-like conversations. In short, it’ll be like playing Knights of the Old Republic, but with a whole other community out there. There will even be rail-shooting space combat, as you pilot your own customized ship. Fans were excited when just the rumor of a BioWare Star Wars MMO was being circulated a few years ago. That excitement will reach a fever pitch this Summer when the game is finally released.
Platform: PC
The Total War series has always been a favorite among wargamers, one of the few real-time strategy games they respond to. The first game in the series was Shogun: Total War, which put the gamer in 15th century Japan during the Sengoku jidai—the “Warring States” period. Players adopted a Japanese clan and set out to conquer Japan and claim the position of shogun.
Eight years later, the series has come full circle with Total War: Shogun 2, which takes place in 16th century Japan during the aftermath of the Ōnin War, where the player takes on the role of one of nine warring empires, each with a unique starting position and different political and military strengths. The game now puts the player in a more intimate role as they now have to deal with loyalty and treachery within their own clan, giving the game a stronger roleplaying element. As usual, the game comes with stunning graphics and sound as well. The game will be landing on the shelves on March 15, 2011, and eagerly snapped up by fans of real-time strategy and Japanese history.
Platform: PC
Long rumored, and finally revealed during the Spike TV Videogame Awards, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception will be taking Nathan Drake into the desert. Nothing else is known about the game, save someone is getting deceived, and if the first two games are any indicator, there will probably be mummies involved.
The desert setting should provide a nice contrast to the usual green jungles Drake is involved in, as well as a lot of bad dialog, hammy performances, and Raiders of the Lost Ark-lite plots. The game will also feature some gorgeous HD graphics and sound - and knowing Sony’s habits lately, will also feature full stereoscopic 3D and PlayStation Move support. Expect some sandy fun this coming Holiday 2011.
Platform: PlayStation 3
Space marines have long been a staple of first person shooters since the first DOOM, but Warhammer 40,000 fans have had their own Space Marines for the last 33 years, and these guys make Master Chief and Marcus Fenix look like genial traffic cops in comparison. The Warhammer 40,000 Space Marines are genetically modified humans who are the footsoldiers of the all-powerful God Emperor. Their job is to destroy whole squadrons of the forces of Chaos and inspire lesser men to great deeds. The difference between them and someone like John-117 is that they are dark knights in a hostile, claustrophobic universe.
In Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, the player is Captain Titus, who is countering an ork invasion of an Imperial Forge World, an entire planet covered by factories. The Warboss leading the ork invasion is attempting to steal and salvage a giant walking tank hundreds of feet tall called the Battle Titan), and it’s up to Titus to prevent the Warboss from getting his hands on it. The game will feature visceral combat, and as for cover mechanics? Titus is the cover. The game will be released this coming Fall 2011.
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
X-COM: UFO Defense (known in Europe as UFO: Enemy Unknown) is one of the most beloved strategy franchises in computer game history, mixing strategic real-time strategy with turn-based tactical strategy, and wrapping it around a squad management sim, in which the player runs a special government agency that is responding to an alien invasion. They have to respond to global emergencies, send jets to shoot down UFOs, and fight aliens, while researching evidence found on the battlefield to form new defenses against the aliens. The game was skin-peelingly hard, but a delight to play.
After several semi-sequel attempts by other companies that failed to capture the spirit of the original, XCOM was announced last summer to howls of protest from gamers: it was being remade as a shooter by 2K Marin, which was comprised of those who worked on BioShock and BioShock 2. Those who watched the development team walk through a build of the game at E3 2010 got a pleasant surprise: believe it or not, it really is an XCOM game. Gamers still have to do the same hard decisions of where to allocate help; rescue missions, unknown missions, and monetary missions bring popularity, research and money, but the player must choose which is more important as the game evolves as they examine how the state of the United States is and whom needs the help most. Players must do the same research to get new weapons and defenses. About the only real difference between the original and the reboot is the genre. Best of all, despite being in the daytime, XCOM is a haunting game, at times outright scary. If 2K Marin doesn’t make any major missteps, XCOM could be a smash hit just as BioShock was this coming Fall 2011.
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360
You’d think the list is over - not so! There are other games that just missed being on the list, whether due to a late announcement, having a questionable release date, or just not being important enough to be on the main list.
BioShock Infinite has a very tentative late 2011 release - don’t be surprised if it slips to 2012. American McGee returns with a sequel to his most popular game, Alice: Madness Returns. Diablo III is a game everyone is looking forward to, but Blizzard keeps stating that the game will have a 2012 release. You never know, though - Diablo III could be the Christmas surprise of 2011. DOOM 4 still has no release date, but it could land this Summer, if past DOOM releases are any clue. inFamous 2 and Prototype 2 will be coming in 2011, with some brutal open world gameplay. Guild Wars 2 looks amazing and plays just as good as World of Warcraft, and best of all, is completely free-to-play. There is a chance it will land in 2011. Another MMO due in 2011 is The Secret World, a game that has been almost forgotten since making a splash with an ARG that introduced it. Almost nothing is known about Hitman 5, but there’s a good chance it’ll land this year, and many fans are looking foward to being Agent 47 again. The mystery that is I Am Alive could be hitting 2011. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword had a mediocre, disappointing reaction at E3 2010, but should still hit the Wii sometime in late 2011. The Nintendo 3DS launch lineup is remarkably strong, and Professor Layton x Ace Attorney is the definite highlight, matching two iconic Japanese characters together for the first time. Mario Kart 3DS will also be the other must-buy game for the new handheld. Captain America: Super Soldier and Thor: God of Thunder go the Batman: Arkham Asylum route, sharing the hit 2009 game’s combat stylings, only with a star spangled shield and legendary hammer. Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One will be taking the Left 4 Dead route of four player co-op this time around, and if Diablo III isn’t released in 2011, both Torchlight 2 and Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale will fill the need for action hack-and-slash gameplay. For those gamers who want a more mature roleplaying experience, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings will fill that void.
Thus concludes our The Year to Come in Games article. Let us know which games on the list really caught your fancy and which ones you’ll be buying day one. Use the links below to see the first three parts of the article.
Last but not least, have a very happy New Year’s and a wonderful 2011 - in games.
