Thanks for reading the third part of the 25 games I am most excited to get my hands on in the coming year. I won't bore you and just jump into the list right away.

<< Part 2 (20 - 16) ------------------------------- Part 4 (10-6) >>

#15 - Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time

Sly is still one of the best 3D platforming series out there. It had an incredibly solid stealth-platforming base established in the Thievius Raccoonus that morphed into open world shenanigans sprinkled with incredibly varied and unique missions that constantly both exploited and twisted that platforming you grew to love. It was one of my favourite series to come out of its era and, while I think that the Sly series earned its little break in order to keep it from getting stale, it’s sad that Sucker Punch’s current generation efforts didn’t resonate with me as much as Sly.

Now the series is in relatively untested hands and I’d be lying if I said I was confident in this game. This fourth title seems to have taken the story at the end of Honor Among Thieves and tossed it out the window. With the time elements and multiple members of the Sly Cooper family, it seems that the gameplay is going down a quite gimmicky route, even as compared to the original trilogy. Worst of all, from my very limited time playing it at PAX, it just doesn’t feel like that solid platforming core has been maintained.

This was a hard game to put on this list, purely because, like I said, I lack confidence in it. I remember how the Jak series “came back” on the PSP, never even coming close to recapturing the original trilogy’s charm. I’m worried that the exact same thing is happening here.

Ultimately though, this list is not a manner of whether I think the game will be good or bad, but how excited I am to see the final product and determine its quality first hand, rather than through pure speculation. And I am way more excited than I am apprehensive to dive into a new Sly adventure.

#14 - Guacamelee!

This game needs to be on this list purely for that name alone. I mean, that’s just brilliant. Also, it’s really fun to say. Guacamelee. Guuuaaaacamelee. Gua-ca-me-lee. GUACAMELEEE!

But to bring it back to the game itself, metroidvania games are always welcome in my book. Add into it some cool melee combat elements, the old standby of parallel worlds ala Link to the Past that impacts every aspect of the game, fluid platforming, and some absolutely gorgeous art and animation with a fantastic sense of style.

I mean, look at dat standing pose. Look at it. LOOK AT IT!

#13 - Super Time Force

Tagging out Guacamelee for the other Toronto indie superstar, Capybara’s new game is looking to be something special. Super Time Force is one of those games where at any point in the game, anything can possibly happen. Anything. Get a mission to go back in time to fight a cyborg T-Rex? Stopping the dinosaur extinction by destroying the meteor? Meteor turns out to be some sort of robot? All of that happened in the PAX demo. When that is presented to you as the standard experience within the game, anything is possible.

But what’s best about this game is just how fun it is to play. There have been quite a few Contra-esque games in the past few years from indie and small japanese developers, but Super Time Force shines due to its Super Meat Boy approach to death, difficulty, challenge, and level design. Death comes quickly on any stage, against any obstacle, but the stage itself is only seconds long. Quick and easy refreshes, along with the ability to save past selves (who are still interacting with the environment simultaneous to you) to create checkpoints, allow you to die again and again and still feel like you’re making progress. Plus, being able to choose classes at each respawn, with each giving you a completely different way of approaching combat, just adds layers of depth, strategy, and enjoyment onto the game.

All in all, it looks like a simple game with cool mechanics and an infinite possibility for insanity. But it looks like it will be incredibly solid, simple, cool, insane game and I cannot wait to play more.

#12 - The Last of Us

The Last of Us is a strange beast. Since the very first trailer of the game, the focus has always been on the characters. It’s been pushed as a personal story, a journey following the gruff, Troy Baker voiced Joel and the young, somewhat naiive, Ellen Page-look-alike Ellie through a post apocalyptic America filled with fungus zombies, supply shortages, and groups of thieves and highwaymen. Oh, and they (and the world around them) will be very, very pretty.

And that is pretty much all we know about the game. Like at all. There have been early promises of this and that, but from the footage we have seen, that’s all we really know. We don’t know how important any of the systems are. We don’t know whether the game is extremely linear, ala Uncharted, or how much choice is played into the game. How deep are the repercussions for playing in a brutal manner? What is even the whole point of this journey of Ellie & Joel? We’re gonna have to wait until May, I guess.

But I know what The Last of Us is striving for. Like all forms of The Walking Dead, it is digging into the way-too-popular post-apocalyptic story and grabbing the human story out of it. Like Bioshock Infinite, it is trying to push the lives, the decisions, and the interactions of two individuals into the spotlight and watch them grow and struggle to overcome their obstacles. Like Uncharted, it is chasing after that cinematic element and weaving it into every aspect of the game, for better or worse.

Even if I don’t know everything I would like to know about it, The Last of Us is still one of the most promising AAA titles this year. Naughty Dog has proven themselves in the past and I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt despite the uncertainty of a big budget new title at the end of a console’s lifespan.

#11 - Skulls of the Shogun

Look, 17-Bit. We need to talk. I know you’ve had a weird development cycle for this game. I know you’ve been trying to put this out for what seems like ages. But of all the games on my list that should have been out by now, this is the one. I’ve played it before. It’s great. It’s a game that is right up my alley and it seems like a game that will have a lot of content to it.

But c’mon guys. I know that the end-of-game crunch is killing you, so I’m not mad at you for not getting this out. But I can’t say I’m not disappointed. So I can see that you probably need some encouragement after missing the Windows 8 launch. But that’s over now. It’s in the past. You’ve got a kick ass game coming to a plethora of platforms. It’s got a killer style to it with mechanics that remind me of greats like Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, and Phantom Brave. Guys, this game is gonna rock.

So tie the fucking bow on this title and get it out there. It’s gonna be great.

The next 5 in the list are below, but I'd also like to redirect you to a short list I made of the games I thought would come out in 2012, but unfortunately were stuck in development. This covers a few games that will be noticeably missing, such as Bioshock Infinite and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

Also, I won't be posting this one to the General Discussion boards. I'm trying to finish all of these blogs within the next couple of days and I think that posting 5 blogs onto the boards in quick succession amounts to little more than a cry for attention. Maybe I'll post the 3rd one and skip the 4th. Or maybe I'll post only the 5th one. We'll see? *shrug*

<< Part 1 (25 - 21) ------------------------------- Part 3 (15-11) >>

#20 - Dark Souls II

Confession time! I’m not done Dark Souls. I mean, I’m not even close. I’m only a few hours in, but I played enough of it to “get it.” I see where the appeal lies, why so many people were enraptured by this brutally difficult and masochistic series. I’m honestly excited to play more of Dark Souls, and its spiritual prequel, when I get around to it.

Dark Souls II offers more of that, but with the opportunity to improve some of the rougher edges of the series. I’d be lying if I said that Dark Souls was a perfect game, as there were many aspects that rubbed me the wrong way. Another attempt with a nice coat of polish seems to be exactly what this series needs, even if the end product only amounts to being "just more Dark Souls".

#19 - Monster Hunter 4

Much like Dark Souls, I haven’t played enough of this series as I should, but I’ve still invested well over 20-30 hours into Freedom Unite and Tri. Again, the appeal of the series has clicked for me. I know why I should be playing these games and I understand why so many others sing its praises. So I’m excited to jump into a new start for the series. With no multiple versions or expansions, everyone will be starting off on the same foot here and I’ll be there in the thick of it, finally being able to play the series both online and on-the-go.

#18 - Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

Again, a series I have not played enough of. I never had a Game Boy Colour back in the day and, since Shantae is quite rare now, my ability to go back and play that WayForward classic is unfortunately hindered. I have played quite a bit of its DSiWare sequel (Risky’s Revenge) though. It’s a great game to have on your DS whenever you boot it up, always available for you to hop in for some metroidvania goodness here and there. My relaxed pace through the game hasn’t lead me to completion yet, but it does have me very excited for the sequel.

#17 - The Cave

With this (kinda) spiritual sequel to Maniac Mansion, except with more platforming and character focused storytelling, it’s looking like Ron Gilbert will finally be working on a title worthy of his history and legend. Not to say that Deathspank was utterly terrible, but it’s just that Monkey Island and those other LucasArts classics will always have a special place in heart. To see Ron working back in that realm again is reason enough for this game to be on my list.

Also, I have always had a soft spot for “Be careful what you wish for”, monkey paw-esque storylines and The Cave is promising three different ones each playthrough, along with some clever puzzles built around each character’s special abilities and the interaction between the three heroes (?) of your journey.

What is there not to like?

#16 - Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine

Couch Co-op is one of the greatest joys in gaming. You have some friends over, cook a nice meal, then all sit on a comfy couch, and proceed to start yelling, punching, screaming, and laughing at each other until the early morning. It’s something that I get to do less and less as I grow older, but it's always been the time I value most with games.

Unfortunately, games with good couch co-op have become few and far between since the glory days of N64 and Dreamcast, being replaced by online interaction. Online certainly has allowed genres like shooters and fighting games to flourish, but when you’re playing these types of games, these experiences meant to be shared by friends in the same room, online feels more like a compromise than an easier solution. Monaco, thankfully, has the best of both worlds, but coordinating, infiltrating, and escaping with the loot with the three friends beside me is what has me eagerly awaiting this game's release.

So I've been looking at what's to come and I think I've narrowed down about 25 games I am dying to play in the next year. Come December, I think we will all agree this won't be the Top 25 Best Games of the Year, but these are the games I find most promising and exciting in this industry for me. I'll be posting this Top 25 in 5 pieces, with 5 being posted almost everyday (almost being the key word there. Really bad at keeping things on time). Anyway, here's the first 5 on the list:

---- Part 2 (20-16) >>

#25 - Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers

While technically an updated port of a 16 year old Sega Saturn game that never came out here, I'm excited to get a chance to play anything "new" in the SMT series. The look back at the 32-bit era Persona ports on the PSP were not exactly enjoyable, but they were interesting to at least examine, especially when you contrast them against the critically acclaimed series Persona is now. So I guess mark this one down as more of a historical curiosity than a game worth being excited about.

#24 - Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

I’m not really much of an anime fan. It’s a weird thing to admit, given how many elements Japanese games just straight up lift from anime and how much enjoyment I get out of those Japanese titles. It’s like saying you don’t like chicken, but you eat KFC all the time.

However, much like most of the world, Studio Ghibli is the one source in anime I will always pay attention to. They make fantastic films with powerful storytelling, but how much of their movies’ magic will transfer into a video game is what really matters. My hopes aren’t exactly set incredibly high for that, as I don’t really trust that they can effectively capture the Ghibli essence without really understanding the medium.

But I do trust Level-5. They’ve had some stinkers in the past, but they’ve risen to quite the powerhouse in Japanese game development, especially in JRPGs with their involvement in the Dragon Quest series. Regardless of how much Ghibli is actually in the game beyond the art style, I know that this will be a mechanically solid RPG.

P.S. What in the hell is going on with that guy’s face?

#23 - Tearaway

Media Molecule has been nothing but a house of disappointment. I never could look past LittleBigPlanet’s loose and frustrating base platforming mechanics in order to enjoy its incredible creative tools. Its sequel solved none of the originals problems, only adding a larger variety of disappointments.

This is their big second chance and I think it might just win me over. The animation in the game and the commitment to that papercraft style is stunning. The gimmicky Vita real world interaction seems to be used in at least cool ways. Most of all? The game doesn’t look like it will depend on tight controls to explore its cool landscapes. I have my doubts, but maybe this will work out.

#22 - South Park: The Stick of Truth

Ni no Kuni and South Park are basically the same pitch: a popular name in animation and a top rated RPG developer join forces to create a simplistic RPG with the animation, style, and story worthy of the animation it is based on.

Now, I don’t really think South Park is going to be a better game than Ni no Kuni, especially considering the absolutely awful run of South Park games over the years, but I have a little bit more faith that the South Park essence could be successfully captured in a video game. From the moment I first saw Stick of Truth, it reminded me of all the reasons why I loved the show. While I don’t I watch South Park regularly anymore, I’m still very excited to see how this one turns out.

#21 - The Witch and the Hundred Knights

There is a golden rule* that I have learned when it comes to one of my favourite developers, Nippon Ichi: Never. Ever. Ever play a game in which they collaborate on or in which they purely publish. Mugen Souls, Last Rebellion, Hyperdimension Neptunia, Trinity Universe, Cross Edge. All of these games? Complete and utter pieces of shit. Almost offensively so. To the point that if someone were to look at the catalogue of Nippon Ichi’s games, these stinkers would almost invalidate the great games they have produced.

(*The only exception to this rule is System Prisma, who are actually owned by Nippon Ichi. They released the Cladun games which were actually pretty good. Simplistic, but good.)

Thankfully, despite not being a Strategy RPG, Witch and the Hundred Knights is purely a Nippon Ichi developed game, so I am expecting quality. Not much has been shown of the game yet, but it looks to be a vibrant, stage based action RPG that almost reminds me of Little King Story with the the RTS aspects toned down. Plop a dark, yet still Disgaea-like, story on top of that and I can definitely get behind this.

Game of the "Year"

So, Giant Bomb, the Giant Bomb community, and pretty much this whole industry has gone crazy over Game of the Year in the past week. And why not? The VGA's happened last week, displaying a surprising level of competence this year and choosing a winner in many of the categories I can't really argue with. So let's all get excited guys! It's time to record some podcasts, wrangle in some special guests, shoot some goofy video segments, and display our lists so we can all discuss, debate, and, ultimately, celebrate the best fucking games this medium has to offer! Video Games! Fuck Yeah, guys! Right?

To which I say, "bah humbug". Now, I'm not here to say that we shouldn't celebrate the awesome achievements in our industry, but just that we're kinda forgetting a few important things in all of this jubilation.

The obvious one is that it's still December. Games are still releasing that, by just the unfortunate time they release, will hit this weird point where no one is going to consider them. They could be the best game that year, but no one will notice it. Yes, yes what good has come out of December, you ask? When September, October, & November are done with their deluge, what dares show its face after Black Friday, let alone after the calendar flips? Well, quite a number of games over these past few years: Pushmo, Mighty Switch Force, The Old Republic, Far Cry 3, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, Mario Kart 7, Trine 2, Hawken, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks... Even the much beloved Persona 4 launched in NA during this holiday month. I know that, even if every game on that list is capable of being enjoyed enough to be celebrated, they were overlooked by far too many.

But it's not just what games are released in December, but what people get in December. Namely, gifts. 'Tis the season of giving and all that jazz, which is warm and heartfelt and all, but what it really means is that a LOT of games are going to be bought and wrapped up until the inevitable day of unwrapping. I understand that this isn't really the case for the enthusiast media, but for the 15 year old that only makes enough to buy a few games a year, for the college student worried more about food than games (at least for those who have their priorities straight), and for many of the knowledgeable folks on this site and, yes, even those within the industry itself, a few of those games that they will unwrap in the closing days of the year may be the best games they play.

(Yeah, I know the holidays are not the same for everyone and I can't speak for all faiths, but with the 100 metre tall godzilla that the holiday season has become, I hope you can forgive me for generalizing.)

A Time To Celebrate

So, why have it now, anyway? The aforementioned fall deluge is barely complete, it's bountiful harvest of AAA and indie games alike are still fresh. These months release more quality titles a week than most people could feasibly play in that timeframe. What possesses people to believe they can experience all that is offered to them, even if they have a narrow or refined taste in games? I find that, without the time for reflection and catching up on titles, the conversation quickly becomes less of "what I thought were the strongest titles this year" and more of "what I actually had time to play."

In films, there are still sites, bloggers, and critics awarding their Movie of the Year awards just like us, but the film industry has some clear advantages in this area of celebration. First, movies don't have a big rush of content in the closing months of the year. Instead, their big rush happens in the summer months so DVD's and the like can experience a nice boost in sales during the holiday bonanza. Also, it doesn't take 5-50 hours to watch a movie. You could watch the 20 biggest movies this year in the time it takes to play Persona 4 Golden or Xenoblade Chronicles.

But even with those advantages, the biggest celebration in movies, the Academy Awards, doesn't even announce their winners for another two and a half months. Heck, they don't even announce their nominations until the end of January. Even with most of their choices for the best films of the year already locked by the time snow starts falling, the movie industry still allows a large gap of reflection and judgement to actually make the right choices.

Hearing about the insane weekend the bomb squad had, just trying to fit all of the titles they've missed in the last year into a short 72 hour time frame, doesn't it seem that we're all rushing this a bit? Patrick is going to be finishing Virtue's Last Reward soon, Ryan seems like he'd want more time with FTL, and Brad missed everything just to make sense of that whole Mass Effect situation. How would the whole discussion on their end change if they delayed it, if only for a month of catching up and reflection, especially with a nice break coming up for the holidays? If anyone could go against the flow and do Game of the Year in January, it's Giant Bomb.

As for us humble forum posters and hobby bloggers, why do we need to make our lists to hit an arbitrary date? It's exciting to talk about all these amazing games from the past year, but what will we lose if we take that extra month or two or three? Will the games of the still-near past lack all of their appeal once the calendar rolls over? Will the relatively dry times (though its growing more fertile) of January & February distract us from looking back at what we've missed, something many of us will do anyway?

Finish Your Plate

I'm not naïve. I'm not saying that any amount of time will allow one to experience every game in a year while still keeping up with the newest, hottest titles, but I'm just saying that with all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season and with all of us growing our backlogs one game at a time, consider slowing your pace down a bit, sitting back with a nice drink, and just enjoying the games you have. And when the year is done and the games are played, then come forth with your list. I'm sure the discussion will be better for it.

So as for me, I'll be waiting until March to consider posting a Game of the Year list. Last year, those three months allowed me to play 6 or 7 titles that actually had a chance or ended up on my Top 10. Looking at the games I have yet to play this year, like Zero Escape, Last Story, X-com, and Torchlight II, I think I'll need a little extra time.