Bara_Chat's most anticipated games of 2012

1. Bioshock Infinite : The obvious choice for the most anticipated game of the year. By far. Bioshock was the best game of this generation, in my opinion, and Infinite looks to be the one to knock it off its podium. Just look at one of its video trailers if you're not convinced.

2. Diablo III : Diablo II is far and away my most-played video game of all-time, thanks to its exceedingly addictive Battle.net feature. The series is so legendary it has its own "Diablo clones" a bit like GTA has spawned a enormous amount of "GTA-likes" in the past decade. This game alone might force me to buy a new computer if my Mac can't run it.

3. Borderlands 2 : Borderlands is the one game I fell in love with this generation. The kind of game I loved so much I didn't even see its flaws. It was unconditional mother-child love. It's also the first game for which I bought DLCs. It's not perfect, but I don't give a s***. There will be better games in 2012, but something inside me wishes to play Borderlands 2 above all else. (Then why it's third, because when I fell back to Earth, I realized Diablo III and Infinite will very likely be better games in every single way, and I'll enjoy them as much as BL2).

4. The Last of Us : I honestly don't know much about this game, but the trailer alone convinced me that I will undoubtedly love it. Of course I've always been a huge fan of post-apocalyptic related entertainment products like Fallout 3, Rage, Borderlands (not exactly post-apocalyptic, but similar feeling), Enslaved, New Vegas, I Am Legend, The Book of Eli, The Road, etc. Well, you get the point.


5. The Last Guardian : Granted, we have no release date announced for this game and, given that Team Ico seemingly (and rightfully so) doesn't care about any sort of outside (read : media and gamers) pressure to release the game soon, it's highly possible we won't see it until next year. Still I have hope.

6. Mass Effect 3 : I played Mass Effect 2 last year in probably the worst circumstances possible. At that time I was playing through 4 or 5 games at the same time (or so it seemed) so I "rushed" through games instead of taking time to really experience and enjoy them. It still took over 30 hours to finish this game, but I'm pretty damn sure I've missed many, many things in my playthrough. Anyway, the story was pretty interesting, so I'm very curious of what will happen next.

7.  Far Cry 3 : That my first taste of the Far Cry franchise was the second opus might make a few people facepalm in unison. The fact that I've never even played the original Far Cry will likely make people. I know the second game of the series didn't please the masses as the first one did. But anyway, I really liked FC2 and I'm really looking forward to it.

8. Prey 2 : This game could actually be higher on this list if I had only a few more info on it. I only saw the jaw-dropping trailer last year and I was amazed. Although you have to learn that trailers are purposedly made with the intention to amaze. Indeed, in the past, the final product has already been less impressive than the damn trailer itself.


9. Metal Gear Rising : Revengeance : Now I must admit, I only discovered (not the existence, but the experience of playing the games) the Metal Gear series in 2008 when I bought the PS3 MGS4 bundle. While I didn't understand a lot of what the hell what actually going on, I thought the gameplay was extremely solid and the attention to details staggering. Since then I've played MGS, MGS2 and started MGS3 and I must this is a very solid (oh, haha) franchise. And Revengeance does look pretty amazing.

10. SSX : The last snowboarding game I played was Amped nearly 10 years ago (I'm not kidding) and before that it was 1080 Snowboarding on N64. Let's just say I'm due for a new snowboarding game, and there's really nothing on the market right now (Shaun White's games are basically horrible if you're to trust any game critic in the world. And from the trailers, you have to say it looks pretty damn cool.

11. Resident Evil 6 : Another franchise I'm a big fan of, so it's impossible to leave this off the list. I explained why in a earlier blog post.


12. Tomb Raider : I simply like where the franchise is heading with this reboot. The gameplay shown at E3 really impressed me. And Lara Croft is one fine-looking lady. What's not to love?

That's it for this year's list.

I don't know if I should be thrilled or not for Resident Evil 6

As most of you already know, the Resident Evil 6 debut trailer has been released today, generating a lot of reaction from many gamers around the world, especially with its November 20th release. I watched it, obviously, but even after reading an article or two on its features, I can't really say if I'm hyped or not for this game.

Why? Well it's complicated. I've been a Resident Evil fan for over a decade, at first because my brother was a HUGE fan of the first 3 or 4 games of the series, then, with the release of Resident Evil 0 on GameCube, I became a big fan myself. Obviously my appreciation towards the franchise exploded with the fantastic Resident Evil 4, which is 3rd on my all-time list of best video games. Then we saw the release, amid controversy, of the very good Resident Evil 5. It received positive reviews, but the general consensus among gamers was that RE5 was a shorter RE4 with a worse story, less survival-horror elements and probably too much action-oriented. I'm not saying I didn't like it. In fact, it's one of the only games I played enough to actually unlock the Platinum trophy.

With RE6's trailer, it seems like Capcom will be focusing once again on hollywoodian action sequences with survival-horror elements here and there, a bit like a bigger, bolder RE5. And that makes me a bit worried. I certainly enjoyed seeing Leon, Chris and what seemed like RE4's Ashley in the trailer, but I don't know about having 3, possibly 4 protagonists in a single game. As for the action elements, I certainly don't mind a bit of blood-pumping action as we saw in RE4 and scarcely in earlier titles. But for me, Resident Evil is more about that feeling you have that there is always something wrong, something threatening your own existence and those moments where you just walk around, exploring, looking for stuff to help you get to the next save point in one piece. RE5 lacked that atmosphere of survival, except for a few great levels, and I can only hope that RE6 will be closer to #4 than #5.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still looking forward to RE6 and I can't see myself NOT buying it. I simply hope that it'll be more like RE4 and less like RE5.

What Am I Playing NOW - Part I

Happy New Year to everybody! I know I'm a tad late, but I still think it's polite to wish you all a happy year. And I hope that it will be as rich as 2011 was, gaming-wise.

So, in this first edition of "What Am I Playing NOW", I'll start with a game I've only just beaten yesterday : Prince of Persia : The Forgotten Sands. The latest PoP was actually a very, very good game that I enjoyed a lot more than the last cel-shaded outing where you couldn't die. That one wasn't bad by any means, as I enjoyed the relationship between the two protagonists and the artistic graphics, but it was nothing memorable.

So, The Forgotten Sands, let's just start by pointing out that the gameplay overshadowed every other aspect of the game. Seriously, the free-running was incredibly well executed, it felt fluid, intuitive and the regularly added powers all felt natural and added some thrill and excitement to the great wall-running/climbing and puzzle solving. The emphasis on timing in the latter parts of the game really made the game that much more fun. Graphically, let's just say that beige, grey and brown walls ruled the day, even if some settings were pretty interesting in an artist's point of view. The weaker point of the game is the story, which was somewhat original, but I thought it wasn't presented very well. That Djin lady (I forgot her name) really was boring. Anyway, a very fun game, the best Prince of Persia I've played since Sands of Time on GameCube.

There's a game I've only just started that is, so far, extremely fun : Rayman Origins. I'll start by saying I've never played a Rayman game before, except on my brother's iPhone, which was certainly not the best example of what the series have to offer. Anyway, it's bloody fantastic. I LOVE the cartoony graphics and the sheer silliness of the characters and enemies. The "platforming" isn't bad either, while maybe not as sharp as, say, the Mario series (then again, which game is?), but still very, very good. I played the game for maybe an hour after opening it yesterday and I was smiling all the time, and that's a great way of saying that it's very enjoyable. More on Rayman Origins soon!

I've just started Gears of War 2 as well, but I've played only for 30-45 minutes so I can't say much about it yet, except that it looks a lot like Gears 1 (obviously...) but with some tweaks that made it a bit better. Looking forward to play it more!

And, last but not least, The Legend of Zelda : Skyward Sword. I haven't read a thing about the dungeons or the length of the game (it's Zelda, by far my favorite game series ever, I don't want to spoil a thing), but I'd say I'm past the halfway point of the game, or so it feels (yes, I've played so much Zelda games I can actually feel where I am in the story). Let's just say that it's a superb game, predictably, and that Zelda games always find a way to innovate while staying true to their formula. It's quite amazing. I'm still not entirely sold on motion controls, but it feels more natural than it did in the first few hours. GoTY candidate for sure.

I also played a tad of Fable II (still at the beginning of the story) while waiting for my brother to give me my Wii back. It's good so far, but I haven't much to say about it, it's tough to comment on an RPG so early in the game. More to come as well.

I could say I'm playing more game than that (and I am), but all others are basically Sports game or online shooters, and those games you can pop in your console, play for 15 minutes to satisfy some craving, then go on with my life. That's a lot harder to do with Zelda or Fable II. Those games are NHL 12, NBA 2K12, Forza 4, BF3 and MW3.

Games to start soon : Skyrim, GTA IV Complete (yes, 3 years later...) and a few PSN games as well.

See you soon!