The date may not be set in stone, but after years of waiting, we can be pretty sure that Blizzard’s Diablo III will finally be available for the world to sink their waking hours into sometime early this year. But for every game that finally emerges from the shadows, there are countless games that you’ll have to put up with not playing this year. Here are five of the best I reckon we’ll still be waiting for this time next year:
Half-Life 3
Five years ago, Valve software left silent, robotic-suit-wearing protagonist Gordon Freeman passed out in a hanger after a shocking sneak attack on his mentor and sidekick at the end of Half-Life 2 Episode Two. Then: silence. In the same package was the brilliant Portal, tentatively linked to the Half-Life saga. We’ve already got a full-blown sequel to that, and still we’ve heard nothing about whatever is coming next from Valve’s flagship series (the gap involved has lead many to assume that we’re waiting for a full-blown ‘Half-Life 3’ rather than another ‘Episode’).
The thing is, this is undoubtedly a good thing (and anyone who says otherwise just has a short memory). Half-Life 2 was revealed to the world at E3 2003, after five years of silence after the release of Half-Life 1. The resulting game was critically lauded and arguably a major inspiration for the last eight years of action games. Yet, it was delayed for over a year after its original release announcement, and it went through several major overhauls during the time no information was given.
Which is almost certainly what is happening with the next Half-Life. The ‘Episodes’ experiment clearly wasn’t successful (resulting in some of their lowest review scores) and they want to regain the magic – and that means massive revisions to the next game’s structure, composition and probably even its script. Whilst you can hope for information this year, there is no chance in hell that we’ll actually be playing the game this year.
Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Back in 2006, Square-Enix were at the height of their ‘Old is the new New’ phase, creating sequels to and remakes of some of the most well known Final Fantasy games. It made sense for them then to begin creating future instalments with the potential for sequels and expansions upfront. Final Fantasy XIII was thus joined by ‘versus XIII’, ‘agito XIII’ and later, the sequel ‘XIII-2’. Nobody really got why or how these rather different sounding games were part of the same ‘Universe’, but we sort of assumed that things would be clearly when they were all released.
Things didn’t quite work out the way they envisaged though. For starters, XIII proved massively divisive and seemingly caused a backlash against the series at large. Agito XIII became ‘Type-0’ after it was realised that it really had nothing to do with Final Fantasy XIII. This leaves ‘versus XIII’ with the dubious task of explaining the kerfuffle. But extraordinarily it didn’t enter ‘full production’ until September 2011, making release in 2013 – let alone 2012 – seem unlikely.
The Last Guardian
There comes a point when games are so ‘underappreciated’ that you’re almost sick of hearing about them. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are two such titles – there isn’t a list of best Playstation 2 games that is complete without them, yet a good portion of their blurbs are taken up apologising for the fact that – especially in the case of Ico – they were overlooked by the games-playing population at large. Yet they’ve been
It’s undeniable, however, that anything Team Ico puts out should be exciting. The next game (a Playstation exclusive, as three of these titles strangely are) is The Last Guardian, and it contains some of the hallmarks of the other games – a relatively defenceless young boy as the player character, a mix of action-adventure and puzzle elements, and a companion who helps and hinders you in the adventure (here Trico, a griffin-like creature).
Will you get to play The Last Guardian this year? You’re supposed to. But missed dates in 2011 bode ill for a game on track: a no show at E3, Gamescom and the Tokyo Game Show, the game was supposed to release in late 2011. What we got instead was the news that the creator of the game – Fumito Ueda – was leaving the company after the game’s eventual completion (and the producer was leaving too). As I’m a pessimistic sort, I fully expect this to release next year.
Beyond Good and Evil 2
Beyond Good and Evil is yet another consistently overlooked game, and the fact that we’re getting a sequel at all is really rather surprising. Nevertheless, Beyond Good and Evil 2 was announced back in 2008 and has spent the time since variously being rumoured as cancelled, or on hold. With lead designer Michel Ancel this creator of Rayman, it is known that BG&E2 was stalled by development of the critically popular (so far ignored) Rayman Origins. And the eventual release? The game is said to be targeted for the next generation of consoles. So somewhere between 2013 and 2014 then.
The Last of Us
“Dude! Did you see that totally rad trailer for that new zombie game on the Video Game Awards last night?”
“Huh?”
“It was really cool, like there was the man and his daughter running from zombies and stuff”
“Oh? I thought Dead Island already got released?”
“Nah, it’s from the makers of Uncharted. And it looks really cool! You know. Zombies!”
“Uncharted? That ought to be good! When can we play it?”
“Oh, like early 2013?”
Games PR can be so cruel.
Steph Wood is a copywriter and blogger currently writing content for Global Integration an internation company specialising in matrix organizational structure and cross cultural training.
stephwoo286
Latest posts by stephwoo286 (see all)
- Five Video Games With Worse Endings Than Mass Effect 3 - March 24, 2012
- Five Video Games You Will Not Play This Year - February 16, 2012
- PC Gaming 2012: The Top Reasons To Upgrade - February 10, 2012
-
NWheeler_CMP
-
http://net-makemoneyonline.blogspot.com/ make money
-
http://www.dragonblogger.com/ Dragon Blogger
-
-
http://ogdenweberinsurance.com/ ogdenweber insurance
-
http://www.yourshop7.com/ ankit11