2010 is crammed full of awesome games. Quarters are spilling into one another, holiday seasons look like just another month and game reviewers everywhere are subsisting on a diet of crack and caffeine pills. To try and bring a sense of order to the madness, I've decided to put together a list of five games that I personally must own by the end of the year. For those interested, these titles also stand a pretty good chance of making it onto an episode of The Irregulars.
This one shouldn't be hard to figure out. Mass Effect 2 surpassed my expectations and surprised me with some of the more sweeping (and welcome) changes to its format. Easily the first and strongest contender for 2010's GOTY (so far).
I owned the original SFIV already and, like many others here on the site, sank many an hour into Capcom's rumbler. The inclusion of ten new fighters and the promise of extensive character re-balancing have convinced me that this year's update to the title that would make fighting games big again is a must-buy.
Although their website showcases only the debut trailer, the idea of developer Rocksteady giving us another Batman game already is both exciting and... Well, terrifying. Hopefully Rocksteady's recent acquisition via Warner Interactive won't change the quality of the games they produce.
Oh, Halo. We don't always like to admit it, but game enthusiasts as a whole owe a lot to you. Whether you were our first functional example of the console shooter experience, our first multiplayer obsession or simply fodder for our misguided rage on anonymous internet forums, you've never failed to give us something to talk about. Hopefully the little series that could goes out in a blaze of glory with this year's fatalistically awesome "Halo: Reach." Either that or I'm going to be real upset about the $60 bones I plan on dropping here.
I realize there's been no official release date announced for SWTOR, but the game appears to be getting very close to a release build, and I can't see it being pushed back to 2011. Anyway, anyone who knows me knows I cannot resist the call of a good MMO. Regardless of how long I stay, any time a developer promises to deliver a fresh, engaging experience with their particular flavor of massively multiplayer I must at least take a look. Usually, I'm left disappointed. The reason this game is on my list who's behind it: BioWare has unflinchingly released stellar RPG after stellar RPG for years now and as far as I'm concerned, if anyone can pull MMOs out of the rut they're in, it's them.
