If you know me at all (and if you don't, how did you ever find this blag among all the other rambling thousands?) then you'll know one of my big (possibly biggest) interests is in games. Vi-de-o games as some luddites call them. And by all accounts, 2008 is shaping up to be a truly awesome (half of a) year for games. With very little further ado then, here are the games I'm most looking forward to that are currently (hopefully) coming out in 2008.
Spore
I don't think I could start this list with anything but Spore - mostly due to the insane length of time since it was first unveiled (when I was still in uni!), but also just because, well, it's Spore.
There's also the fact that Will Wright is no doubt one of the industry's leading creative geniuses (genii), and I don't lay such praise lightly; back when The Sims was in development some critics expected it to turn out as a relatively niche title with an odd concept that wouldn't be accepted by the hardcore crowd - now it's by far one of the biggest selling franchises ever, and even better its responsible for pretty much single-handedly introducing the "casual" gamer crowd to "real" games. You know it's true. I've just realised I've managed to ramble on this far without even saying anything actually about Spore. Oh well. I'll just go with my prediction that even though, again, some critics don't think it will be very mainstream due to the odd premise, it's going to be huger than huge, in a big way thanks to the ridiculously easy usability of the editor bits in it.
Mercenaries 2
Getting this in here as it rather unfortunately is due to come out on the same day as Spore. Seems like a terrible decision but they're probably looking for a different "target demographic". Anyway, the original Mercenaries (I think I had the Xbox version, not PS2) was in my opinion the best sandbox game to let you actually play at your objectives in a free-form manner. Plus much destruction (just remembered the cliché subtitle was "Playground of destruction", so I guess it's living up to that quite well). I think I'm going to enjoy this much more than the overall almost disappointment that was GTA 4 and the "good but slightly lacking" Crackdown. I'm almost prepared for a disappointment here too, but the preview enthusiasm is still holding out for now.
Guitar Hero 4 (I.e. "World Tour")
*Controversy warning!* I enjoyed and still enjoy Guitar Hero 3 (yes, 3) MORE THAN ROCK BAND! Sorry everyone. The note charts are just more fun because they're almost insanely difficult, but getting used to that and then playing RB just felt like GH lite on easy mode, plus vocals and drums. Discovering that I don't have the co-ordination for drums and that the world as a whole is a better place if I don't attempt to sing, GH3 has easily won me over. Other than all this though, GH4 will have a music editor built in, letting you create tracks for all instruments other than the vocals, and that, my friends, can only mean one thing: classic 16 bit era game music in GH form:
Warhammer Online
Probably the least likely from this list to make it out this year(!), but thanks to the shiny collector's edition pre-order I'm guaranteed a place in the open beta (whatever that really means), which is the next stage of the beta (apparently). Age of Conan was a massive disappointment (and I didn't even notice when it was released, just picked it up from GAME one day - yes I was desperate and used GAME) but *something* has to replace WOW, right? Ok maybe not, but a lot of people (me included) want a change from WOW although still with a somewhat mainstream MMO, and I'll really be into the Warhammer IP from being a bit of a Games Workshop geek back in the day. We'll see!
This is going to end up being one epic blag post unless I split it up a bit, so this'll do for now, check back at some indeterminate time later for some more of Ross' games of 2008 to look forward to! It's actually a brilliant 2nd half of a year for games. Woo.
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