Introspection on 2012

Tis the start of a new year and as such I will begin the year, hoping this will become tradition, with a few thoughts and opinions about the games of 2012 and about games related stuff. And, yes, the picture is related because I just want to stress that the world WILL NOT be ending in 2012. Lets all us reasonable people just go outside and beat people who do believe it will… will sledgehammers… Flaming sledgehammers…

A good place to start would be with the rumoured forthcoming announcement of the next generation of consoles. I know it’s actually fairly wide-spread the idea that Microsoft will be announcing the X-Box 720 (or whatever they are going to call it) at E3 in June. Whether Sony will get in on this I have less of an idea, but they might announce something and then actually release it two years after Microsoft do… And Nintendo will make a new Wii with some new Mario games because Nintendo doesn’t do ANYTHING new EVER!!

Anyway, hopefully they will announce a fairly soon release date because it has to be said with the recent releases of games like Skyrim the old consoles are really showing their age (except the Wii because it can’t play Skyrim…).

There are quite a few big titles worth waiting for coming out this year, although I fear it may not be quite as amazing as last year (let’s face it 2011 was a good year).

Mass Effect 3, by Bioware, descends from Space and the heavens on the 6th of March in the America and the 9th in Europe. While Tim isn’t a massive Mass Effect fan, I am and this will be the culmination of a an absolutely epic story and, in my humble opinion will be one of the best games of 2012. I absolutely cannot wait (and hope I’m right about the “best games” business…).

That same month also sees the release of Max Payne 3, from Rockstar Games, a game both Tim and me have expressed a fair amount of interest in, but an actual date hasn’t been announced yet so I would brace yourself for the possibility of it being pushed back a little.

There are several really big games that me and Tim are absolutely mad for but no official release date has been announced yet. They are:

• Bioshock Infinite by Irrational Games. Which looks beyond amazing and as far as I am aware was pegged for “early” 2012 but according to IGN will be coming out in Autumn (as are all games these days…).
• Halo 4 by 343 Industries. While Tim may not be that much into Halo any more, just the thought of once again being the master Chief and saving humanity gets me all excited!
• Borderlands 2 by Gearbox Software. The first one was good and hopefully the second one will be better. It’s another game both me and Tim have expressed more than a small amount of interest in.
• Hitman Absolution by IO Interactive. When I saw the trailer towards the end of 2011 I was interested but after watching 16 or so minutes of gameplay I decided I would HAVE to play this game. It just looks amazing.
• Doom 4 by ID Software. I can’t believe I almost forgot about this… Doom 4… Wow… Looks like people are going to need to inject steroids into their computers and anti-panic medication into their hearts towards the end of 2012…

And then there’s the big two. The games that I reckon will be in direct combat with Mass Effect 3 for my affections. Guild Wars 2 and Diablo 3 (from ArenaNet and Blizzard respectively). They look big, amazing and absolutely bad-ass. I simply cannot wait.

All in all, perhaps by the end of the the year I may rescind my earlier statement of “may not be as good as last year” because when I put all of those games I am looking forward to into a list… My oh my do I get all excited. It’s gonna be good…