Well, well, well... No sooner have I finished looking back on the games of 2008, when I've got to consider the games I will be playing over the coming year. I've decided that this post will come in a few parts, considering the variety of consoles available to me, this seems the only sensible way to go... Otherwise it gets a little confusing.
So let's start with the most accessible: The 360. I say 'accessible' because it's right there in the little living room, the room where we hang out the most. The TV is the biggest downstairs (not huge, about 28 ", but it has the Xbox and the Dreamcast permanently hooked up to it, so there's no messing about with cables.
The Wii now resides in Little Ted's room and the PS3 moves about from room to room. In the big living room, we have the PS2 and recently, the Saturn permanently hooked up. Nice set up huh?
OK, so first things first... There's no point me starting anything new till I've tidied a couple of things up.
Unfinished Business #1: GTA IV I'm 50% of the way through the game. However, I can see this as being something I chip away at 5% at a time between other games. I really think I have to be careful in the future. I'm not the sort of guy who can just gun his way through a game. One because the demands of work and family necessitate that I don't put in long sessions of play, hours at a time. I'm not an intuitive gamer. Missions, routes, pathways etc. that might seem obvious to others can pass me by unnoticed. That can result in me spending ages just floundering around. Missions that some people might knock off on a first attempt, I might only achieve on a third or fourth attempt... The time adds up and it's time I don't have... So Niko, will have to be content to come out and play on my schedule...
Unfinished Business #2: Fallout 3: I'm in love with this game and the world in which you play. everything about this game is perfect to me. The atmosphere, the interaction with AI characters, the retro-future styling, the gun play with the VATS system, the apocalyptic vision of post-nuclear war ravaged Washington, the various tribes and factions, the fauna and flora, the nostalgic soundtrack and in game radio broadcasts... Sheesh! It's everything I had hoped for and more... I've played it without guides or walkthroughs, discovering new characters, quests, areas and landscapes, letting the game unfold before me. It's picking up speed now and my progress is much quicker than it was in the first few days of play. So I'm completing this before anything else is even considered. I've got my DS, Dreamcast and Saturn for short bursts of distraction if needed, but there will be nothing put into the 360 before I've completed Fallout... (Oh and do enjoy the video review at the top of the post...)
Hopefully, no matter how badly I play, I'll have managed to complete it before March 13th 2009, the day the highly arousing Resident Evil 5 comes out. This will be pre-ordered and picked up on the day of release. I'm not expecting to breeze through it by any means, so it could take up most of March. I'm quite tempted to play it co-op with someone much better than me, so I can complete it quickly, see the cut scenes and story revelations and then maybe come back and play it single player at my leisure...
Gears Of War 2: I enjoyed Gears well enough, but I'm not mad to get into GOW2. it's been sat in my house for nearly a month and I haven't even bothered to try it for five minutes, but I will get round to it.
ProEvo 2009: For the last couple of months I've watched my two eldest sons play match after match with often hilarious competitiveness. I've got to get in on the action. I love soccer games on the Saturn and Dreamcast, but both Pro and Fifa have eluded me in terms of appeal since PS2 times... Having said that I played about three seasons of Fifa 07 on my DS whilst I was off, winning every major title and taking my beloved Manchester City to the top of the Premiership.
So yeah, football is gonna feature in 2009.
Bioshock 2: Another one which will be pre-ordered and picked up on the day of release. Unlike the second part of Gears Of War, I'm gagging to see what happens in the next installment of this particular story. It's taken all of my will power to not take a backward step and re-play the original...
Call Of Duty: World At War: I liked COD4 in mission mode, and that is the way I intend to play this title. In straightforward liner fashion till it's completed, then I'll leave it alone.
I'll stop there, because that lot could conceivably take me up to the Autumn period. No doubt I'll deviate from this list or there will be something I've not considered that catches my eye. But realistically, if I also play my other consoles in the way I intend, that's quite enough to be going on with...
