Alright this is a list that I've been waiting to do EXCLUSIVELY for Giant Bomb, you heard it here first. Luckily I waited way less than I thought, it was like a day after E3 that this site went up..............and it's beautiful!

Let's start this list with knowledge. This E3 was one of the worst for press conferences and it's probably the last E3 period. All three of the major companies had bad conferences with Sony having the best line-up of games for the next year. That's not to take away from Microsoft and Nintendo however as both have great looking games on the horizon, all right I'm sorry that was a lie, Nintendo has great looking game on the horizon, my bad. With that being said SPOILER ALERT:
No Nintendo game will make it into this list. I'm not Anti-Nintendo but they're hard for me to look at right now.
Let's get Crack-a-Lackin'

The Rocketeer?

Number 10:

Dark Void

This game is quite far out and certainly won't make this year but I felt it deserved a place on this list for it's unique style of game play. I'm a big Rocketeer fan, it's one of my favourite movies so I'm slightly biased in the Nathan Fillion style of rushing in heads first and running backwards wounded and spouting jokes. Some of the mechanics are worrying me from game play, especially the shooting and lack of varying enemies but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt and give this game the tenth spot on my list.

I'm only doing this once!

Number 9:

Borderlands

Post-Apocalyptic games make up a good chuck of this list. I'm a sucker for them, apparently so are most of the people who have seen the E3 Game play where over half a million guns were announced. Nothing wrong with that but if there's an achievement for getting all of them people are getting shot. Driving and shooting..................hrmmmmm.......................what's the name of that Racing gAme that also has shootinG Elements? Oh well, anyway this game looks great, remember though take anything I say with a grain of salt because I haven't played these games, I've just seen them.

Mirror's Edge

Alright, alright, I get it, first-person parkouring is a strange concept, but if gaming is heading any where it's heading in a direction where games get their own unique styles, and let's face it, Mirrors Edge got style. Faith isn't the kind of girl you'd want to take on a date (I'm not a fan of Brooders) but at least she can kick some serious ass on the trail and on the police. I like the idea of a first person game where I can jump across buildings and do things I don't want to do in real life. There's also a dot in the center of the screen for sickness purposes but that can be taken off if your hardcore, I personally plan to take to Wimp-Dot off when I get this game.

A man and his Dwarf.

Number 7:

Fable II

I apologize before hand, I have a very abusive relationship with Peter Molyneux, he tells me he'll make a good game and praises the games prowess and I believe him. He then releases the game and while it's really good, it misses the mark on a lot of things, usually in the technical department. Yet again Peter's seductive ways have sucked me in and I am in the grasp of Fable II. This game looks great, a lot of people say this game looks like Fable but only stylistically. Graphically that's like comparing Ninja Gaiden II to Ninja Gaiden, don't be stupid it's been many years and a generation of consoles, It looks better. Watching this game reminds me of when my friend and I played through Fable together in one night, and hey now we can do that when we're both playing.....................................totally worth it. Seriously though Fable, like Peter Molyneux, look really pretty.

It hurts like Hell! (Get it! Scorpion's from Hell!)

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
Dude Mortal Kombat, that game has been misspelling it's way into my Heart for over a decade. I'm going to be honest, I love Mortal Kombat. It is joint with SoulCalibur for my favourite fighting franchise. I find it ironic that neither has had an amazing game since its initial formula. However, I believe that this game will live up to MK in a way that SCIV did not. I hope that I'm not going to read this in a few months time and think, oh boy I was wrong but oh well. My only problem so far with the game is how unnatural it looks when the characters are fighting while falling, hopefully this will be improved in the coming months. Fingers crossed.

Known Quantity? That's a lot of Quantity!

Gears of War II

Gears of War is known quantity by now, Marcus Fenix, Terry Tate and a Chainsaw Bayonet. Hold on a minute! Flamethrowers, Machine Pistols, oh, and Brumac riding! This might be known quantity but Gears of War II is adding tonnes of new content, a greater storyline and a seriously large scope that includes hundreds of locust. This game is going to be hard and grisly. I'm looking forward to this game and right now I'm brushing up on Gears of War on my computer. This is certainly a game to look out for and yet only made number five on my list. How in God’s name could that have happened you might ask? Read on Cog Soldier!

Hey what happened?

Fallout III

Fallout III is on this list above Gears of War II entirely based on the game play demo from the Microsoft press conference. Fallout looks amazing and I cannot wait to play this game on its release day on my PC. Let's get my issues with it out of the way. I love Oblivion, I love Morrowind, I love Fallout and Fallout II (Not so much Brotherhood of Steel) but the problems with Oblivion seem to persist in Fallout. The way enemies run at you seems very shuffled and problematic. Now to the great things. The game plays amazingly, the regular FPS style to the V.A.T.S. is a great way to mix Role-Playing and Shooting in a way that feels natural. The ideas behind the game are flawless; I just hope that when this game is released, the execution is done as well as the planning.

That just looks good!

Killzone II

This game looks beautiful, the shades are top notch and it looks as though Sony are going to hit something right on the head in each category of gaming in the next year, this one gets the Shooter. Nothing to take away from Resistance II but Killzone just has that feeling that you get with Halo, that you get with Gears and that you get with Call of Duty. Killzone just has that great feeling with a shooter when your gun is large and your in charge. Killzone also have one of the best enemies in a game. The Hellghast are very cool and very cool looking, hell yes I want to blow them up!  Killzone I failed because of the execution, there were great ideas behind it.................sorry, déjà vu.................where was I? Right, if Killzone II can get the shooting elements combining with the story they might make that Half Life effect of perfect Harmony between plot and game play in a shooter. My fingers are crossed.

Huh, Interesting.

LittleBigPlanet

LittleBigPlanet is one of those games that makes me look around as a gamer and think "You know what, I'm happy with my life choices!" This game is just right in every way, this could have easily taken the top spot but I reserved that spot for the game that showed the best, and LittleBigPlanet didn't show much at E3, it made the single best part of the Sony press conference but I'm positive this game is not going to make October, it just doesn't feel like it will. I don't know why I think that but it's happened plenty of times in the past. Release dates announced at E3 not being permanent? UNHEARD OF!! I tell you good sir I don't believe it. LittleBigPlanet is adorable, in a very strange way it gives me hope for what humanity can do! Also, this game is part of my destiny as it was announced on my Birthday, however hopefully it doesn't meet the same fate of purgatory that the other game announced on my birthday got. God Willing!

This game is dark and bloody as Hell!

Number 1:

Dead Space

Let's face it Dead Space had the best showing at E3 hands down, from the demo at the EA Conference to the Boss fight that cut Brad Shoemaker in half. This game looks phenomenal, of course I've said that before about one game that ended up not being phenomenal but I will never make that mistake again. The mechanics in this game are fantastic, it is not HUDless, the HUD just simply is integrated into the game. The atmosphere in this game is fantastic, much like Bioshock in the way that everything is completely dedicated to the style of the game. Dead Space is a game with great promise, however there is little known about the direction the in-game story is going in, we know all about the background of the game but hopefully come October I'll be enjoying a few of the games on this list with great things to say about how my predictions were right!

Closing:

As you can see, 2008 has an even better showing than 2007, oh my god blasphemy! It really does, and with some really interesting titles coming next year, maybe 2009 could improve upon these last two years. I will leave you now with some honorary mentions that I decided needed to be made, remember that any of these titles could have made it onto this list but I wanted two specific things on this list, known quantity for release this year, and unknown quantity with unknown release. Thank You for reading, sorry if your game of show wasn't on the list. Here are the mentions:

    Street Fighter 4

    The Agency

    Resistance 2

    Saints Row 2

    Left 4 Dead

    Rock Band 2

    Resident Evil 5

    The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

    Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

    Fat Princess

…on XBLA and Xbox Originals.

Now to the point. For games I would like to see on XBLA I’m just going to pick old games because I can’t really suggest new games. I will list 5 for each in order of importance.

1. XNA Games; I would like to see the user created games that Microsoft has been promising, there are some seriously amazing games out there, like The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai and Colosseum, these games are sick, and are apparently heading for XBLA. But putting down a hundred bucks for the XNA Creators Club to play these games on your Xbox is a bit much.

2. Castle Crashers; I really want this game. I’m sorry, this is a game that is coming out, but it is just so cool. It’s made by The Behemoth the same guys who made Alien Hominid. You are basically a knight of the elements, Fire, Wind, Water, Lightning(not an element but cooler than Earth) and it’s a 2D Platformer that has up to four player co-op and has some seriously cool animation.

3. Grim Fandango; This piece of gaming art from 1998 revealed to the world that the Adventure and Puzzle genre could come together with beautiful results. This game needs to be released on XBLA, and when I say that, I mean it. I mean what other game do you know of where you play a Travel Agent for dead souls and you must help them on their four year journey to the ninth underworld, that’s what I thought.

4. Rayman; I can’t get enough of that cute Mii predecessor, any Rayman game is fine, I’m not picky, preferably one though from before the year 2000. His no arm, no leg, no crap way is just fantastic.

5. Half Life; Dude, it’s Half Life, it needs to be on a gamepad, and more new age gamers need to see why this game was so revered when it was released, the new age graphics, the A.I., the cohesive storyline. A game gets a five or less if it’s missing one of these things, but back then, this was the shit.

For your information, I have fond memories of Goldeneye but I went back and played this game recently and it was like playing a flipbook, oh and the gun sounds were off sync with shooting. So that loses its place on my list, but having seen a video of the apparent XBLA version it looks as though they’ve improved this.

Now for the Xbox Originals which are of course original Xbox games that you can download from Xbox live, the ones they have so far are Halo, Psychonauts, Indigo Prophecy, Burnout 3: Takedown, Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex, Fusion Frenzy, Fable and Crimson Skies.

1. Knights of the Old Republic; enough said.

2. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind; this game is not right for some people, but for me and Stubs, it’s fantastic. This giant world created by Bethesda is one of the best games on the Original Xbox and therefore most deserving of this list.

3. Fable: The lost chapters, the balls Microsoft has to not release this but instead release the half version of fable is ridiculous, I refuse to buy it until it includes everything from the lost chapters.

4. Star Wars Republic Commando, the best star wars shooter of all time deserves not only to be on this list, but to have a sequel, or at least a god dam remake.

5. Kingdom under Fire and The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay; Kingdom under Fire and Escape from Butcher Bay both have sequels coming out at some point, so that is why they share this list. The Riddick sequel apparently comes with a revamped version of Butcher Bay so hopefully I don’t need it to be on this list. Kingdom under Fire: Circle of Doom is not nearly the same genre as the original, it’s a 3 Person Role Playing Platformer while the original one was a 3 Person Action Real Time Strategy Game, a true sequel is promised though. Both of these games were absolutely fantastic and therefore equally deserve to be on this list.

I hope you enjoyed my lists and that your memories of these games have filled you with warmness, please don’t mind the fact that I cheated a bit with the Originals list. Yes I do think they should release Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords onto the Xbox Originals, no it’s not as good as Knights of the Old Republic.