Now, I’d love to say that with a new and different year, comes new and different games, but the truth is that most of these games aren’t genre-defying in any way. Some even sound eerily like games that get announced every year. Now I have little interest in the likes of Call Of Duty and Battlefield—I suck at FPS nowadays—and prefer to tickle my gaming sphincter with single-player experiences these days. It’s as simple as that I just prioritise differently than I used to.
Despite this, a FPS game still managed to sneak unto this list. Damn you Bungie.
But first up.
Alien: Isolation
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! Are we finally going to get an Alien game that is actually terrifying? It’s about [deity] damn time. The memory of the clown-affair that was Alien: Colonial Marines still haunts all of us but this game might just turn that around. Provided they don’t fuck it up with lot of guns. I love the artistic style of this game.
Excitement Level: 4 and a half bony facehuggers out of 5
Destiny
In a way I suppose it’s a little wrong that this even gets to make the list. I’m not that excited about it and why should I be? It’s a MMOFPS—even though Bungie wants to call it a shared-world shooter—and as I’ve already established I suck at FPS. I’m also not competitive enough to care about any kind of PvP they might have in mind. So, why is it on this list then? Well, I love Bungie for their passion and I’m really curious to see where they’re going with this.
Excitement Level: 2 spherical celestial bodies out of 5
Dying Light
Remember Dead Island? Remember what a disappointment of colossal proportions the game was, after the hauntingly beautiful teaser that turned out to be absolutely nothing like the actual game. Well it seems that Techland is out to set things right and by the looks of it—in the form of actual gameplay—it would appear they’re on the right track. Dying Light looks to become the gruelling survival horror game that I wanted last time but didn’t get.
Excitement Level: 5 dismembered limbs out of 5
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
The comparison between this game and the Assassin’s Creed series has already been made so much that I’m not going to. But I will say this much: Orc stabbing with no risk of the sci-fi poo-poo? I’m sold! This game looks to be a lot of fun and quite frankly any comparisons to other games’ and their gameplay is just another cherry on this ice cream sundae made from frozen orc blood.
Excitement Level: 5 precious rings—mine!—out of 5
Thief
Garrett is back for vengance! No? Not vengance, he’s just back? Okay, if you say so. He went away and now he’s back? Wow, you’re not really selling this story much, are you? But what can I say, I like sneaking and stabbing games, as you might have already noticed. So despite the fact that I’m a bit apprehensive about this one I really do hope that it will be good. You know what I wish? That there would be absolutely no supernatural elements to this game. That would be a nice change of pace. Theif gets bonus points for the sheer irony of stealing its own tag line “What’s mine is yours” from the game Monaco. Shame on you, Thief.
Excitement Level: 4 shiny family jewels out of 5
Watch Dogs
First of all, I’m of course not going to call it by it’s real name, WATCH_DOGS, because I just can’t be bothered to write that stupid capitalization every time I mention it. I’ve done it once now, whining about how I don’t want to and that should be enough. But the stupid naming aside this open world action-adventure featuring a hacker named Aiden Pearce, who apparently uses both his “fists and wits” to do… well… “hacky” stuff I assume, seems like an interesting game with some exciting gameplay. What else can I say? I’m intriqued and curious but equally much I’m not “5 out of 5” excited about this one.
Excitement Level: 3 and a half “hackers” out of 5.
Fallout 4
Last, least and more importantly totally unannounced I have decided to place Fallout 4 because this is the game I would be most excited about. If Bethesda could just tell us something, anything, about the possibilities of a sequel to their critically acclaimed Fallout 3. What’s wrong Bethesda, don’t you want my money?
Excitement Level: 7 mutated hillbillies out of 5