The 2011 Video Games I’m Most Looking Forward To

Some years just plain suck for video games; when there’s hardly any inter­est­ing new titles to look for­ward to, and the hype sur­round­ing big releases turns out to be more excit­ing than the actual game.  2011 is not going to be one of those years .

At the begin­ning of every year, I like to make a list of all the upcom­ing games I want to play and HOLY SHIT  this year is going to be awe­some (not to men­tion expen­sive).  Here’s what I’m look­ing for­ward to the most (as in, I will go out of my way to get these games on release day), in order of release date:

Dragon Age II

Release Date: March 8, 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

Set in the same world of Thedas, this sequel to Dragon Age: Ori­gins takes place in a dif­fer­ent region of the map called the Free Marches.  Play­ers take on the role of Hawke, a sur­vivor of the Blight and Cham­pion of Kirk­wall who rises to power through­out the game, which spans a decade.  One really inter­est­ing fea­ture is that the player can import data from Dragon Age: Ori­gins which will reflect choices that the player made in the orig­i­nal game.  One of the major things play­ers com­plained about in Ori­gins were the graph­ics.  So far, screen­shots have promised to be a major improvement.

Black Mir­ror 3: Final Fear

Release Date: April 12, 2011
Platform(s): PC

The third and final chap­ter of the The Black Mir­ror point-and-click adven­ture hor­ror series for PC picks up where the sec­ond game ends. Play­ers return as pro­tag­o­nist Dar­ren Michaels, who is haunted by the generations-old curse that runs through his bloodline.

Red Johnson’s Chronicles

Release Date: TBA, Spring 2011
Platform(s): PlaySta­tion 3

This PS3 exclu­sive promises to be a cross between the CSI and P rofes­sor Lay­ton titles in terms of game­play, with beau­ti­ful, styl­is­tic graph­ics that take full advan­tage of the PS3 hard­ware. You play as Red, a pri­vate eye inves­ti­gat­ing a high pro­file mur­der in a gritty, urban set­ting akin to New York City. This may turn out to be the most adventure-ish adven­ture game yet for PS3!

Por­tal 2

Release Date: April 18, 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

Por­tal was the sur­prise hit of 2007, and fans of the orig­i­nal game have been clam­or­ing for a sequel ever since.  In Por­tal 2, play­ers return to the Aper­ture Sci­ence facil­ity to find it dilap­i­dated and will again face rig­or­ous phys­i­cal tests as we help to rebuild.  We can expect the same inno­v­a­tive style of physics-based puz­zle game­play that made the orig­i­nal so great.

L.A. Noire

Release Date: May 17, 2011
Platform(s): PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

Set in a very real­is­tic 1947 Los Ange­les cre­ated as a visual homage to 1940s noir films, L.A. Noire will have play­ers solv­ing mur­der mys­ter­ies in an open-ended, sand­box style envi­ron­ment.  Rock­star promises to deliver “a vio­lent crime thriller that blends breath­tak­ing action with true detec­tive work to deliver an unprece­dented inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence.”  If this game turns out to be any­where near as good as Red Dead Redemp­tion , I think we can safely put it in the run­ning for Game of the Year.

ICO / Shadow of the Colos­sus HD Collection

Release Date: Q1/Q2 2011
Platform(s): PlaySta­tion 3

Orig­i­nally released on PlaySta­tion 2, ICO and its spir­i­tual suc­ces­sor Shadow of the Colos­sus are con­sid­ered to be two of the most impor­tant games in terms of artis­tic expres­sion and emo­tional response.  Fans of the orig­i­nals as well as new play­ers who want to expe­ri­ence these jour­neys for the first time will be treated to a high-definition remake for the PS3 that will also sup­port 3D.

The Last Guardian

Release Date: Q4 2011
Platform(s): PlaySta­tion 3

The newest Team ICO title that fans of ICO and Shadow of the Colos­sus are eagerly await­ing, The Last Guardian will share the same styl­is­tic, the­matic, and game­play ele­ments of its predecessors.

Alice: Mad­ness Returns

Release Date: Q4 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

If you were a fan of Amer­i­can McGee’s crit­i­cally acclaimed Alice game for PC, no doubt that this upcom­ing sequel—also designed by Amer­i­can McGee—is on your radar.  Tak­ing place 11 years after the events in the first game, Alice relo­cates from Rut­ledge Asy­lum to the care of a psy­chi­a­trist in Lon­don where she con­tin­ues to strug­gle with real­ity, slips back into mad­ness and returns a Won­der­land over­rid­den with evil.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

Release Date: Novem­ber 1, 2011
Platform(s): Playsta­tion 3

I con­sider Uncharted and its first sequel two of the best games I have ever played—and I have played a lot of games.  I can’t even begin to imag­ine how devel­oper Naughty Dog will be able to top itself with this third install­ment.  The game is set pri­mar­ily against the arid, desert back­drop of  the Ara­bian Penin­sula as pro­tag­o­nist Nathan Drake goes in search of the leg­endary lost city, Iram of the Pil­lars.  The story will focus heav­ily on the friend­ship between Drake and his men­tor and fre­quent trav­el­ing com­pan­ion Vic­tor Sullivan.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Release Date: Novem­ber 11, 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

Tak­ing place two-hundred years after the events of Elder Scrolls IV: Obliv­ion (which, btw, if you haven’t played it, shame on you),  Skyrim returns play­ers to Tam­riel, which has erupted into civil war. Play­ers take on the role of the last-surviving Dovahkiin (trans­la­tion: “Drag­onborn”) to save the world from Alduin, god of destruc­tion.   As in pre­vi­ous Elder Scrolls games, I expect an adven­ture of epic pro­por­tions.  The lat­est issue of Game­In­former has a GORGEOUS 10-page spread pre­view of this game, and it looks absolutely stunning.

I Am Alive

Release Date: TBA, 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360, Nin­tendo Wii

A new, orig­i­nal (read: non-sequel) title that I’m really excited about.  A major earth­quake has destroyed Chicago and sep­a­rated it from the main­land.  Your goal is to sur­vive the apocalyptic-like sur­round­ings by for­ag­ing for food and water, and ward­ing off enemies—other human beings who threaten your own sur­vival.  Oh yeah, and you’re also try­ing to find and res­cue your miss­ing girl­friend, too.  The game has been in devel­op­ment since 2005 and suf­fered numer­ous set­backs, but is planned to be released some­time this year.

The Leg­end of Zelda: Sky­ward Sword

Release Date: TBA, 2011
Platform(s): Nin­tendo Wii

2011 is a pretty piti­ful year for Wii games, with not many new titles on the hori­zon.  But a new Zelda game, typ­i­cally her­alded by Zelda fans like the sec­ond com­ing, could make up for it. (Though I’m keep­ing my expec­ta­tions in check due to the dis­ap­point­ment that was Metroid: Other M .)

Dia­blo III

Release Date: TBA, 2011
Platform(s): PC

Bliz­zard has yet to announce a release date for its much-anticipated hack & slash sequel, but most fans of Bliz­zard games are accus­tomed to wait­ing. I just hope not for too much longer!

Child of Eden

Release Date: TBA, 2011
Platform(s): PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

Remem­ber the shoot­ing game Rez ?  (And how amaz­ing it was?)  Devel­oper Tet­suya Mizuguchi, the man who gave us Rez, returns with a new game sim­i­lar in con­cept and game­play.  Like Rez, the game­play will be a har­monic fusion of sound, vision and touch as play­ers rhyth­mi­cally shoot at var­i­ous tar­gets that pro­duce melodic sounds when destroyed.  I can’t wait to expe­ri­ence it in glo­ri­ous HD on my 60″ Mitsubishi.

Dead Island

Release Date: TBA, 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

When I first heard about Dead Island —a zom­bie sur­vival hor­ror FPS set on a deserted island—I dis­missed it as just another zom­bie game. But that was before I saw this trailer .

What games are you really look­ing for­ward to this year?

Live-Action Ninja Turtles Return for 2011

In geeky movie news this month that makes me feel like a fifth-grader again, TMNT co-creater Peter Laird con­firmed in Vari­ety rumors of another live-action  Tur­tles  movie planned for 2011.  The announce­ment comes on the heels of  TMNT’s 25th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion.  Other than mak­ing me feel old, I’m also damn excited.  Because in Hol­ly­wood, every­thing I loved grow­ing up in the 1980s is sud­denly cool again.  The new Tur­tles  film will be pro­duced by Scott Med­nick of Leg­endary Pic­tures, who is cur­rently pro­duc­ing the soon to be released Where The Wild Things Are,  another live-action fan­tasy film (which hap­pens to be based on yet another com­pletely awe­some thing from my child­hood).  And if these screen­shots are any indi­ca­tion of what’s in store for the next TMNT , then color me green with excitement.

After the orig­i­nal live-action movie, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles  films went from bad to worse, though 2007’s ani­mated  TMNT  was OK.  Then again, I’m of the opin­ion that the first Tur­tles movie is one of the great­est if under­rated comic book movies of all time—but I may be a lit­tle biased.  I was obsessed with all things Ninja Tur­tles as a kid.  Like  really  obsessed.  If it had a TMNT logo on it, I owned it.  I could quote the movies word for word (prob­a­bly still can).

My wish­list for the new live-action Tur­tles movie:

• Darker, grit­tier, edgier Tur­tles truer to the orig­i­nal Mirage comic books.
• Curse words.  Most TMNT fans have grown up, and so should the movies.
• Sex (if only to sat­isfy my mor­bid curiosity). 
• Real­stic CGI that doesn’t look like CGI.
• Back to basics origins/roots sto­ry­line. (Think Bat­man Begins .)
• April O’Neil, and any­one other than Paige Turco to play her.
• Blood, weapons, and graphic violence.
• Moar Raphael.*

Things I could live with­out:

• Shell-tastic tur­tle puns.
• Any char­ac­ter who exists solely in the Archie comics series.
• No Venus.
• Ran­dom kid-who-meets-the-Turtles char­ac­ter (a’la Keno in Turltes II, and later Yoshi in Tur­tles III).
• Any sto­ry­line involv­ing time travel.
• A Turtles-themed rap song.
• A PG rating.
• Cowabunga.

The sucky part about all this?  Wait­ing two years.

*Raphael is still the coolest tur­tle, and if you don’t agree with me, I’m not shar­ing my Ninja Tur­tles fruit snacks with you.