Hello 2009, Now Where are all the Good Games?

Posted 1/7/09

Categories: General

So I just finished playing the demo for Ninja Blade on Xbox 360 and walked away feeling… meh. Sure the game looks pretty, feels very much like Ninja Gaiden, but adds several quick time events to give it a more cinematic feel. Unfortunately the controls are a little on the sloppy, and much like Ninja Gaiden the boss battles are frustratingly hard. As such this shortens the list of games I was looking forward by one.

Which got me to thinking. What games was I looking forward to this year?

Looking at Gamestapo’s coming soon list got me a little disheartened. Aside from Street Fighter 4, a couple of Halo offshoots and Killzone 2 there was nothing really stellar lined up for at least the next three months. For me there are a couple of cheeseball titles like X-Blades and OneChanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad for the Xbox 360, but beyond that I see a bunch of remakes and budget-ware.

I guess it’s still early in the year, but seeing as how the past couple of years have been so good for games I just started to expect more. I’ll be keeping my ear to the tracks as I’m sure there will be more titles with news surfacing over the next 6 months. And I know we still have things in the pipes like Uncharted 2, Some kind of Bioshock prequel/sequel, Tekken 6 and the ever elusive FFXIII, but those are still too early to be sure of a 2009 release. And with news of more and more devs and magazines closing their doors the new years seeming a little gloomy for the industry.