So, what games are you all looking forward to this year?
Anything special on the way? Or just more of the same?
There’s nothing on my list at this point; I’m happy to play catch up for a while.
I think this will be the year of the PS3 myself , SONY seems to have a brilliant line up .
I’m looking forward too
God Of War 3
Riddick
Bayonetta
Alan Wake
Dark Void
Operation Flashpoint
inFamous
Drakes Fortune II
Forza II
Lost Planet II (looks stunning)
Resident Evil 5
Dead Rising II
Colin McRae 2009
I wanna see how these will turn out…
Wii
Endless Ocean 2
Sin & Punishment 2
Oboro Muramasa Youtouden
MadWorld
A Boy and His Blob
Monster Hunter 3
Another Code R
Fragile
Arc Rise Fantasia
The Crystal Bearers
Tales of Ten
Rune Factory Frontier
Little King’s Story
Spectrobes Origins
Anno Create a New World
Kizuna
Cursed Mountain
The Munchables
Excitebots
Cosmic Walker
Virtua Tennis (motion plus will make this grand, hopefully)
Tiger Woods (motion plus will make this grand, hopefully)
Pikmin 3
Wii Sports Resort (motion plus will make this grand, hopefully)
Dead Space: Extraction
Overlord: Dark Legend
The Conduit
I think these are 2010:
No More Heroes 2
Dragon Quest X
WiiWare
Swords & Soldiers
Cave Story
Icarian
Eduardo The Samurai Toaster
Last Flight
Night Game
Super Meat Boy
PC:
Mount&Blade Expansion
Street Fighter IV
Starcraft 2
Disciples III
Empire: Time of Troubles
Gratuitous Space Battles
The Book of Unwritten Tales
The Whispered World
The Path
Eschalon: Book II
Age of Decadence
King’s Bounty Expansion
Legends of Zork
Operation Flashpoint 2
Jumpgate Evolution
Subversion
Venture Dinosauria
Naumachia
Snapshot
Fez
Precursors
Zeno Clash
Cryostasis
Bioshock 2
America’s Army 3
Dragon Age
Beyond Good & Evil 2
The Crossing
Alpha Protocol
Divine Divinity 2
Risen
Borderlands
The Secret World
Alan Wake
Owlboy
Overlord 2
Trine
…Uh, that’s all I can think of right now… Brain melting… I probably forgot tons of notable titles I should be smacked for…
Erm. Well. I could only think of Halo 3: ODST, so I looked on Wiki and I can add… well, not much. All I could see was Assassin’s Creed 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction (if they don’t slip til next year). I’ve already picked up Halo Wars (fantastic) and I may yet pick up HAWX.
Street Fighter IV on the PC. Chun Li. Thighs. 1920x1200 resolution 
Miami Law looks to be exciting.
It’s a DS game set to be the first release from Gaijinworks, the company Victor Ireland founded after Working Designs died. I love Working Designs games so I’m excited!
Also (these are probably not 2009):
Beyond Good & Evil 2
the “Ace Attorney” spinoff where you play as Edgeworth
fixed
Team ICO’s game of course that’s all I care about! And I havn’t even seen it yet.
I’m sorry but I’m starting to lose faith in gaming. Everything is starting to go down hill. Japanese Rpg’s, first person shooters, SONIC, everything!
Everything is just about mindless violence, because this stupid generation of teenagers lack the creativity to bend thier minds to something different.
Played Star Ocean Last Hope and it was horrible. Story and Characters were pathetic. It’s sad really that I’m putting my faith in one game, but times have changed for the wrose. I’d rather live in the past. 
Well I guess I’m looking forward to Beyond Good and Evil 2 as well, but that’s pretty much it…
Um yeah, I don’t think JRPGs were the pinacle of story telling in the past, minus a few exceptions. Things haven’t changed for the worst, they just haven’t really improved, at least in these ways. You still get cookie cutter games made for the mainstream, pseudo-epic adventures, and the odd, less known gem that brings its genre back to the spotlight,whether that’s a JRPG (Can’t wait for Dragon Quest X) or even something as simple as a rail shooter (Sin & Punishment 2 yay) or 2D hack and slash (Muramasa wooo princess crown team is go). You may need to expand your horizons a little bit and tone down the expectations in terms of story telling because until they start hiring professional writers in the same way they do for movies or books, you won’t see that aspect improve. I liked The Witcher if you want a recent RPG. The setting is good ol brutal fantasy you don’t often see. It’s not without flaws of course. It’s a little harsh to go in threads people write what they look forward to saying all gaming sucks 
Well if you saw my recent “Gaming Gems” thread I made a “While” ago I already played and praised The Witcher. In fact it’s the last Rpg I played out of all the current crap that actually felt original and in my opinion fresh and brilliant. But to everyone his own I guess. 
“It’s a little harsh to go in threads people write what they look forward to saying all gaming sucks :P”
I’m sorry but expectations aside that’s how I truly feel. And the crap-tacular after crap-tacular games that keep coming out sort of back up my opinion.
If you haven?t been around since gaming began(here’s looking at you small fries!), most people won’t get me, but look at every game that comes out; it’s either geard towards mindless violence, unoriginal, cliche, FIRST PERSON SHOOTER crap upon crap, or just more of the same (sonic I’m looking at you!). And don’t get me started when it comes to SEGA’s games. They can’t I repeat can’t make games anymore! Well with the exception of Valkyria Chronicles…
You have a lot of valid points and I have to agree with most of them, but like you said: there are those far and in between gems like Muramasa, Beyond Good and Evil 2 and Team ICO’s next game, which don’t come around too often. And that’s my point:
We get a truly wonderful game every blue moon and have to sift through the crap in between. And that’s what I’m trying to get across: gaming isn’t what it used to be.
And if we have to wait years upon years for an incredibly creative, out of the box game; that’s not so good! 
That is the simple point I’m trying to make.
I do hope FF13 is good, no I pray it will be good!
Here’s another example(I’m sure people can relate with me on this one):
Fans of Shenmue wait years upon countless years for the last installment of the would be trilogy, only for it to be substituted with what?
YAKUZA: a more violent, uncreative version of Shenmue!
And worst of all it gets to be a complete trilogy. Why? I ask, why? Because it’s all about mindless violence with little to no creativity.
I’m just saying, maybe there will never be a new Panzer Dragoon Saga. And you can shun games that TRY to be a new Panzer Dragoon Saga and never achieve it. But there’s no reason to shun studios that don’t try to make a Panzer Dragoon Saga and instead try to make playable, fun games.
Not every company has gone downhill like SEGA did (though they occasionally prove they still got it).
Treasure still make incredible action games.
THQ surprise with quality games like De Blob.
Clover’s spirit lives on in Platinum Games.
Arc System Works and SNK Playmore still make incredible 2D fighting games.
CAPCOM finds ways to revitalise franchises and make new ones, even if they don’t always work out as intended.
Blizzard continues to focus on quality and long term support over quantity and that’s why it took Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 this long to show up.
Stardock have built their own legacy in the 4X genre with Galactic Civilizations.
Ubisoft continue making tons of shovelware but also have studios doing creative, genuine efforts like the Anno games or for more mainstream approach the likes of Assassin’s Creed.
MMO games have taken off, not merely with World of Warcraft clones but genuine creative efforts like Eve Online.
Tetsuya Mizuguch still does his own thing.
Bioware is hopefully going back to its roots with Dragon Age.
European and Eastern European developers continue to bring out non conventional gems that either turn genres upside down or bring the old back to school (King’s Bounty).
EA continue to surprise with their efforts. Who would have thought they would focus on creative new efforts like Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge?
Not to mention the empowering of the independent developer finding his way to publishing platforms like Steam or even the console first parties and giving us creative gaming at its finest. How about some World of Goo? Or, since you like old school CRPGs, take a look at the upcoming Age of Decadence. If you like Konami’s Castlevania series and wish they’d make another non portable entry, Aquaria is for you. If you loved Metroid, you’ll love Cave Story even more. Spelunky is a creative mix of platformers and roguelikes and is FREE.
Etc, etc etc etc etc etc.
A few examples that barely scratch the surface really, if I made a proper list this would be a never ending post and I already feel shamefully bad for not mentioning this or that.
Sure, you can bring just as many examples of where things go wrong, but honestly, it’s always been like that.
What, when we were playing with the Saturn we didn’t curse the PlayStation’s success for being not due to its great games (which it did have many of eventually) but due to the mainstream shovelware that made it sell and killed the success of our beloved and so worthy platform and company? Didn’t that continue with the way the PlayStation 2’s premise alone prematurely killed the Dreamcast off?
Things are the same, the bad is here just as prominent but so is the good if you only look for it.
Honestly, I think it’s unwarranted and perhaps a little pretentious to just demean “violent games” like that, in such a generalising way. If you had enjoyed all of the awesome Saturn games that ammounted to little more than lots of beating, shooting, and explosions, and if you really liked SEGA how they used to be since they were largely an arcade based company that created games made for instant gratification, then you have changed nowadays to be unable to like games that try to offer similar qualities and instead you’re only looking for the next story telling masterpiece. If you haven’t changed and instead none of that was your cup of tea in the first place, whether coming from SEGA or other companies that built their legacy (and many of them continue it) on making FUN games, then okay, perhaps you’re right and gaming isn’t for you. It is for me, and I don’t pride myself as someone who wets his pants over violence as you generalised, but rather over fun games.
[quote=“legaiaflame”]Here’s another example(I’m sure people can relate with me on this one):
Fans of Shenmue wait years upon countless years for the last installment of the would be trilogy, only for it to be substituted with what?
YAKUZA: a more violent, uncreative version of Shenmue!
And worst of all it gets to be a complete trilogy. Why? I ask, why? Because it’s all about mindless violence with little to no creativity.[/quote]
You say that like there’s no violence in Shemmue, There’s plenty of it , there’s no violence in Gutair Hero , Madden or Fifa and they sell quite a lot . I think you’re going off on one, there’s plenty of great games out there , if you willing to give them a chance
They’re no Capcom , but I sorry I thought Virtual Fighter 5, Virtual Tennis III were brilliant games as was Val and Yakuza II , and I maybe the only one but I quite enjoyed Sonic Unleashed
We get you, but even in the so called magical days 8 and 16 bit days , there were tons of unoriginal copycat games , just as bad as it is now.
Also I don’t get what is so wrong with a game having mindless violence , when done well like it Ninja Gaiden II and Ninja Blade it can add to the game
Looks like I was wrong - there’s plenty of upcoming games to check out. I really need to keep up with the new releases.
How many of them will be of a high quality remains to be seen, of course. The problem, these days, is wading through all the generic, mainstream titles to find the gems. There’s a lot more choice, due to the growth of the video games industry.
And I couldn’t agree with you all more but in terms of violence: at least games like Nina Gaiden have “Style”. it’s just… maybe things are becoming more complicated than they need to be.
And I guess I have to take into account the “Nastalgia” factor a lot of people including myself refuse to let go!
[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]Looks like I was wrong - there’s plenty of upcoming games to check out. I really need to keep up with the new releases.
How many of them will be of a high quality remains to be seen, of course. The problem, these days, is wading through all the generic, mainstream titles to find the gems. There’s a lot more choice, due to the growth of the video games industry.[/quote]
That was my point all along: Wading through the dirt to find the gems. But along the way we have to deal with seriously generic, garbage games just like we always have I guess!
[quote=“legaiaflame”]And I couldn’t agree with you all more but in terms of violence: at least games like Nina Gaiden have “Style”. it’s just… maybe things are becoming more complicated than they need to be.
And I guess I have to take into account the “Nastalgia” factor a lot of people including myself refuse to let go![/quote]
Violence has always been there and always help with sales , hello Barbarian and Mortal Kombat. Also you’re just as guilty has all of us. In in thinking that its not as good, as the so called glory days ,
When the reality is, there was an awful lot of crap on the Mega Drive , Snes , or Master System and Saturn , PS
These days in games seem to be FPS, but back in the 16 bit days , it was platform games and then were ten a penny and most of them averaged at best . I do miss the old days for traditional shooters and Light Gun games , but otherwise the last couple of generation of games have been brilliant .
Just a shame SEGA no longer makes Hardware or more so the games I want them to make these days , that’s a killer for me , but just the way of the world , and I can hardly blame this current gen of hardware for that
The 8-bit days probably had the highest amount of rubbish to wade through, considering the huge amount of unlicensed games that popped up. I mean, Bible Adventures or something and lots of random crude porn based games
But yeah as said, back in the day there was a massive surge of platform games. Right now, seems to be a lot of shooters popping up. Today isn’t that bad though, I loved Mass Effect for example, even though that’s getting on a bit now.
Speaking of Mass Effect, I’m waiting for Mass Effect 2, even thought that’ll probably end up being 2010. Also interested in The Behemoth’s (creators of Castle Crashers) next game. Looks kinda interesting, bit frantic. That probably won’t end up being this year either though.