I’ve got to get my skates on.  I’m still wading through Red Dead Redemption which I’m still loving (but it’s huge!) and that’s not to mention Undead Nightmare that I’ve yet to touch.

Meanwhile PixelJunk Shooter 2 is going in the sin bin.  Permanently.  So for now I’m just going to highlight a few select games that are going to be epic this year and what I’ll be hoping to play:

Portal 2

As I write this, the game is on its way in the post.  I wasn’t originally going to buy it until it had come down in price, but it’s been a combination of not wanting to stumble across any spoilers, the fact the game is three times larger than the original, everyone’s freaking out about how good it is and that the PS3 version is the definitive version… of course I’ve had to jump on the bandwagon and offer up a few notes to the guys at Valve in exchange for a copy of the game.  I couldn’t resist.

inFamous 2

This one’s going to be a pre-order as I absolutely loved the first game.  That alone justifies its inclusion on this list.  Let’s just say that improved graphics, storyline, new abilities, and tons more gameplay sweeten the deal?  Access to Uncharted 3′s multiplayer beta seals the deal!

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

If I could only choose to buy one game this year, it would be Uncharted 3.  From Uncharted’s humble origins in 2007, to worldwide anticipation in 2011- each game simply oozes quality.  Beyond simply being ‘just another franchise’, so much love, blood, sweat and tears go into creating each game that they’ve become more than just games, they’re masterpieces (my opinion).

Uncharted 3 has been my PS3′s wallpaper and theme since the reveal.  I’m counting down the days until November.  After what Uncharted 2 delivered this one will definitely be epic!

Batman: Arkham City

I’ll be playing inFamous this Summer and Uncharted 3 from November onwards, but with Arkham City releasing towards the end of October, will there be enough time to fit it in?  Probably not.  I’m not denying that it’ll be a great game- I had terrific fun with the original.

However in 2009, Arkham Asylum and Uncharted 2 were separated by a couple of months- this time around it’s probably going to be just over a couple of weeks.  If Batman wants to test my loyalty, then I’m afraid I’m going to side with Nathan Drake each and every time.

LA Noire

Yes, it’s probably one of the biggest games of the year, but I’m still focusing on squeezing every last drop of gameplay out of my existing games.  LA Noire will get a look-in from me when it comes down in price to about £25- £30.

As for the game itself, instead of shooting first and asking questions later, you’ll have to do proper detective work, and read the faces of your suspects.  Are they telling the truth?  Compelling.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

This has to be the easiest sell to fans of the shooter genre.  A day one purchase for me just for the multiplayer.  Let’s just hope that the online multiplayer isn’t as buggy on the PS3 as Black Ops was.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Promising to answer many questions that fans of the series have, and tying up many loose ends that have been present for the past couple of games, this latest addition will deliver satisfaction.  Ezio and Altair in one game: I can hardly contain my excitement!  With an expanded multiplayer promised, we’ll have to see how the team at Ubisoft can improve upon last year’s masterpiece.

Here’s to a great year for gaming!

That’s quite a bold statement to make, but I’ll gently walk you through what’s been buzzing around in my head for months.  Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first: films, TV programmes, video games have traditionally been displayed in 2D.  As human beings, we see in 3D.

Perception

So why hasn’t this bothered us before?  Well, the human brain is a remarkable thing.  We may not be able to number-crunch as well as computers, but the brain is able to make sense out of our chaotic and often unpredictable environment.  As we look at a 2D photograph or video, we’re able to interpret what we see and ‘convert’ it into 3D in our minds.

Sure, we don’t get the added sense of depth that 3D technology provides, but I’ve coped well-enough up to now without wanting to reach out and grab those butterflies that adverts and tech demos are so fond of using.  As for the aforementioned tech demos, I found them to work better with 3D than the actual film itself.

How so?  For a kick off I found the picture a bit blurry (even though the latest 3D technology is supposed to keep the image crisp and clear) and in Tron: Legacy when the main protagonist of the film got sucked into ‘the Grid’ and everything was supposed to leap into 3D… I didn’t really notice it.  Could it be that technology is now trying to do something for us that our brains have already been doing for us on some unconscious  level?  You know, making sense of what we’re seeing.

Direction

I’m hoping that most of you will agree with me that Inception was one of the highest quality film releases we’ve had in some time.  It wasn’t in 3D though, was it?  Did that matter?  Well, no.  It received critical acclaim nevertheless.

As far as I see it, if you’re watching a film or TV programme, you’re viewing the world created by some very talented people through a window that the director has chosen to show you.  All of the precise camera angles selected, the lighting and the direction, have all been chosen for maximum effect.

Do I really want those butterflies to start flying towards me?  I jest, but if anything this new realm of 3D entertainment is perhaps better suited to video games.  Video games are a very immersive form of entertainment, and 3D could perhaps enhance this.

Yet… I then read about a warning from Nintendo about its 3DS handheld, stating amongst other things that it ‘could affect the way depth is perceived’ in young children’s eyes.  I honestly don’t know what to think.

To the future!

I’m not some kind of luddite who is adverse to new technology.  Far from it.  Multi- touch interfaces and high definition displays are now common pieces of technology for many people, and offer better experiences for users than what came before.  3D?  I just don’t buy it.

I’ll be all-for holographic technology and virtual reality environments when they come out as they’ll truly be a leap above and beyond what we have today, but more and more I’m feeling that the film industry and other companies with vested interests have conjured up 3D shortly after everyone made the leap to HD.  I mean, seriously?  It’s just never enough for them.

And that concludes my rant.

Yours,

A concerned citizen.

Of course though, if you want any kind of offline multiplayer experiences with your shiny new toy you’re going to have to buy multiple controllers.  You’re not too bad if you plump for the ‘PlayStation Move Starter Pack‘ that Amazon is selling for £39.99.  Which isn’t bad value considering you get the move controller, a PlayStation Eye, and a starter disc.  What I find incredible though, is that for someone like me who already owns the PlayStation Eye, the standalone Move controller still retails for £38.  Unbelievable.

So, even if I buy the Starter Pack just to spite Sony and bag some extra swag that I don’t really need, I still can’t buy any additional controllers without spending a small fortune.  The icing on the cake that I’ve been saving until now though is the ‘PlayStation Move-Charging Stand’, which is yours for a mere £27.75.  Which trust me, you’ll need as there’s only so many items you can fit around your PS3 on charge.

So, is the PlayStation Move a peripheral too far?  Well sure, whilst I reserve my right to grumble at the price, I’ll probably end up getting one in future anyway.  All as I need is a compelling reason to get one.  Move support for Heavy Rain has me interested, as does SOCOM 4 and Killzone 3.  Those are good incentives!  On top of that, plenty of existing games are getting patched for Move support.  This could be interesting.

PlayStation Move

Speaking of the devil, the Move has finally been priced and dated which ‘moves’ it out of the vapourware category.  Should be an interesting direction to take the PS3, but who exactly is it aimed at?  If it’s mainly children, then they’ve already got the Wii, and for parents the Wii is a heck of a lot cheaper.  This concerns me.

I’ll qualify the above with a caveat though: the PlayStation has the best tech in this area now.  Way more accurate (1:1 tracking) than anything the Wii can offer with better graphics and sound to boot, and more tactile than the Xbox 360′s Project Natal Kinect product.  I’m sorry, but waving your arms about can be hit and miss whilst gaming whether you’re a seasoned gamer or a casual one.  That’s just the way it is.

Killzone 3

The graphics should be spectacular, and it has support for PlayStation Move.

3D gaming has arrived

This isn’t really a big deal for me, as I don’t buy into the whole 3D spiel just yet.  However I can’t argue with the fact that this is potentially another exciting avenue for the PS3 (and gaming in general) to be going down.

Portal 2

If you’d have told me a week ago that Gabe Newell would be actually present at Sony’s E3 keynote with a native Valve game AND proclaim that it would be the best console version, I would have just laughed.  And laughed.  Now I get to eat my own hat.  But seriously, this is an epic win for the PS3 platform as it means that going forward, we now have Valve working on first-class games for the system.

And maybe, just maybe, good ol’ Gabe won’t slate the PS3 quite so much going forward!

Gran Turismo 5 gets dated

That’s good enough for me.  I mean, months turned into years (almost 2 years since the Prologue version!) and hope turned into despair.  The end is in sight now!

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

Not only am I very excited about the next instalment in the series after the sublime sequel, but it’s also nice to get a few perks.  I’m taking about the PS3-exclusive multiplayer beta.  Good stuff.

Medal of Honor

The PS3-exclusive special edition includes a HD remastering of Medal of Honor: Frontline.  Whether this is a deal breaker for some, who knows?  But again, it is nice to get some exclusive perks.  Over the years is has been frustrating to say the least, seeing treasured PlayStation franchises lose their exclusivity.  So what was announced in the keynote along these lines restores a bit of equilibrium in my eyes anyway.

inFamous 2

I’m really unsure about the change of art style and re-think of the main characters(s) as this can lose the cohesiveness that is usually found in a series.  However I’m willing to look the other way on this one as I really enjoyed the last game, and I trust Sucker Punch to make the sequel even more epic.  I can picture the crackle of electrical power to be wielded already.  Muwahaha!

So there you go, just some thoughts of mine.  Am I spot-on, or a bit wide of the mark in some places?

I dabbled with Burnout 3: Takedown on the original Xbox and found it to be great fun, but the gaming experience didn’t feel as pure as its predecessor.  After that, I totally skipped the next instalments in the series, Burnout: Revenge and Burnout: Dominator (which was not even developed by Criterion).  You see, Burnout had got rid of the gameplay feature that gave its name; the burnout.  In Burnout 2: Point of impact, you could drain your boost meter without stopping which would cause the meter to refill, meaning that as long as you didn’t crash, you could chain as many boosts together as you wanted.  It melted your eyes.

The experience of chaining boosts together was exhilarating.  Your car was screaming towards heavy traffic at what felt like the speed of a bullet and only three things could happen: one) you made it through and felt amazing, either attributing it to your skill or luck; two) you hoped for the best and watched in horror as your car disintegrated into thousands of pieces across the highway; or three) you chickened out, ending boost and saw the reassuring ‘burnout’ sign flash up either humiliating you if you could have made it through or vindicating you if going through with boost would have been impossible.  This gameplay mechanic was sorely missed.

Onto the next generation of consoles with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 came Burnout Paradise.  I had played the demo and was terribly disappointed, voicing my grief in a post entitled ‘Criterion defend their new baby‘.  For the time being, my driving game of choice switched from the Burnout series to the latest release in the TOCA Touring Car Series, Race Driver: GRID.  I summed up my thoughts at the time in ‘My driving game of choice: is there a worthy successor?‘  (Side note: seeing where Codemasters has taken the McRae:DiRT series with the sequel, I hope they don’t go down the same path for GRID 2.)

I began to ease off playing racing/driving games, but one day I spotted Argos selling Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, which had most expansion packs included bar Big Surf Island for the bargain sum of £17.99.  I couldn’t resist.  I’m glad I gave into the temptation as whilst I’m not going to backtrack on what I have said in previous posts, the game really does merit further play.  Looking back, the demo wasn’t really suited to the type of gameplay that the Burnout series now has in this incarnation as you weren’t necessarily thrust into the chaotic and sublime races that the game has to offer.

I still hate having to roam the city looking for the right traffic lights to start an event, but it’s worth it just to experience some of the great races that you can compete in.  The only major problem I have with Paradise City is lack of variety.  Because it’s just one big city, everywhere is more or less the same.  Sure, you have different areas and districts but you’re not going to have as much variety in previous games that went to places in Europe and Japan instead of always taking place in some generic US city.  Just my opinion.

I still stand by the fact that this is not the game I originally fell in love with.  Instead of being a game you can really sink your teeth into, it’s more of a takeaway game that you can dip in and out of if you’ve got a bit of spare time and a craving for a spot of gaming.  If it wasn’t for the low-ball pricing then I wouldn’t have snagged this game at all.  At least it’s got me back on to the streets and back into the driving seat.  Maybe that’s where I’ve always belonged.

Some will have you believe that game difficulty is measured solely on consensus of opinion by the hardcore gamers.  A good example is Modern Warfare 2.  Consensus of opinion says that it is easier than it’s predecessor.  I’ve found it quite challenging on normal settings thank you very much!  I’ve often found myself holed down in a relatively safe spot before hearing a loud THWACK and either seeing another inspiring quote or reading the sage words of advice such as ‘vehicles on fire may explode’ and  ’it might be an idea to stay way from grenades going off’ from what I call the game’s hindsight detector.

Ok, so I ad-libbed those pieces of advice.  But what I’m trying to get at is that sometimes before I knew it, I had died more times than Bill Murray in the space of a minute!  The Gulag level springs to mind, for instance.  This may sound like I’m complaining, but I’m not.  In this case, the controls are spot-on, gameplay is realistic, and the challenge is set at such a level that the appetite to try just one more time never diminishes.  I’m looking forward to another run through of the game on hardened and veteran.

I can say that Modern Warfare 2 has been the most challenging game I’ve come across for quite some time.  Looking at other games I can say that yes, Uncharted 2 is easier than the first game, Burnout Paradise really is easy, Arkham Asylum’s main story is easy enough but the challenge rooms are tough and Assassin’s Creed II is easy.  But those are just my words which may seem empty if your experiences have differed.  I’m only speaking for myself here.  The bit I love about this topic though, is that everyone’s opinion is valid.

Does anyone want to share some of their experiences with different games?  The only people I don’t want to hear from are unemployed teenagers who do a 9 till 6 shift gaming.  I just can’t compete with that.  ;)