Coming Attractions: Action-Adventure & Platformers

Highlights

Epic Mickey

Oh Mickey, you're so fine, especially now you've been reimagined for a generation of media-savvy cultural bankrupts.

On: Wii / Developer: Junction Point / Publisher: Disney Interactive / Release: Autumn 2010

Is Epic Mickey a platformer, an adventure game or an RPG? "Well... Yes," Warren Spector told us back in October. The Deus Ex creator is applying his trademark genre-bending to this new vehicle for Disney's mascot, throwing in a storyline with some surprisingly dark undertones to boot. You get to decide how Mickey's character develops, making mischief or saving the day as you see fit. Gameplay revolves around using the Wii remote to apply magical paint and thinner, thereby dynamically changing the world and even Mickey himself. Both Disney and Spector are making some bold moves here - will they pull it off?

Fez

On: Xbox 360 / Developer: Polytron / Publisher: Polytron / Release: Early 2010

Not, disappointingly, a game based around the adventures of Tommy Cooper but an Xbox Live Arcade title from independent studio Polytron. You play as Gomez, a 2D character who discovers he's living in a 3D world and sets about exploring it. Influences include Super Paper Mario and the work of M. C. Hammer. Sorry, Escher. The game won the 2008 Independent Games Festival award for Excellence in Visual Art, and was nominated for Design Innovation too. One to watch out for if you like your platformers pretty, kooky and smart.

Lost in Shadow

Stop, collaborate and listen, ICO's back with a brand new edition, etc

On: Wii / Developer: Hudson / Publisher: Konami / Release: 2010

Another Wii exclusive, one which may not have big-name characters or star designers attached, but which is still attracting attention thanks to its arty visuals and unique gameplay. You follow the adventures of a shadow-boy trying to climb a mysterious tower, solving puzzles and fighting off enemies along the way. Your job is to move lights in the foreground to create new shadowy pathways and help him reach inaccessible areas. It's probably best to take a look at the screenshots to understand what all the fuss is about. Expect Lost in Shadow to earn widespread critical praise, get lots of mentions during arguments about whether games are art and sell about 23 copies.

Project Needlemouse

On: PS3, Xbox 360 / Developer: SEGA / Publisher: SEGA / Release: 2010

Many veteran Sonic fans cheered when SEGA announced the series is going back to its 2D roots for this new instalment, codenamed Project Needlemouse. But there are many questions still to be answered: Will Richard Jacques do the soundtrack? Will Tails return too? What about the Eggman, kookookachoo? Is Sonic really coming home? Or are we in for another 15 years of hurt? And what on earth is that ridiculously complicated guess-the-playable-character competition all about? Never mind the fact there's not so much of a hint as to a possible release date. Oh well, fingers crossed it'll be here in 2010. And won't be rubbish.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

He believes he can fly, just like R Kelly. Except of course he's riding a dragon rather than a... Never mind.

On: Wii / Developer: Nintendo / Publisher: Nintendo / Release: 2010

For many the announcement of a sequel to Mario Galaxy was the major highlight of Nintendo's E3 2009 press conference, apart from Women's Murder Club. Since then few details have slipped out - we know Yoshi will play a starring role, that snow, ghost, flower and puzzle worlds will feature, and that there might be a Super Guide, but otherwise there's not a lot to go on. However, Shigeru Miyamoto has promised more than 90 per cent of the content in Super Mario Galaxy 2 will be "brand new". Expect plenty of surprises, enhancements and ideas of the kind which made the original game so entertaining and enjoyable.

Also in 2010

Gish creator Edmund McMillen will beef up the WiiWare library with his surreal new offering, Super Meat Boy; classic nineties side-scrollers could be enjoying a comeback as Bonk: Brink of Extinction and the new Rocket Knight Adventures get download releases; The Behemoth (the studio which brought us Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers) is promising a 2D platformer with a co-op element for 2010, but a name has yet to be announced; and from the indie community there's black-and-white stunner Limbo, a fully-fledged version of hit Flash game Closure and The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, in which you play a time-travelling pie-thief.

Crackdown 2

Tough on zombies, tough on the causes of zombies.

On: Xbox 360 / Developer: Ruffian Games / Publisher: Microsoft / Release: First half of 2010

It's an oft-repeated truism that no-one's nailed open-world gaming quite like Rockstar North, but the exception that proved the rule was close neighbour (in fact, blood relation) Realtime Worlds with 2007's fantastically free-wheeling Crackdown. Realtime's moved on, but from what we've seen, splinter studio Ruffian still preserves that magic DNA whilst ladling on the online modes - co-op for four, deathmatch for 16 - and, slightly disappointingly, giving you a justification for running over all those pedestrians by turning them into voguish zombies. Voguing zombies would have been better.

Dead Rising 2

On: PC, PS3, Xbox 360 / Developer: Blue Castle Games, Capcom / Publisher: Capcom / Release: 2010

Speaking of which... We wouldn't mind if the whole zombie thing got over itself quite soon, but no matter how bad the overexposure gets, we will always make time for a new Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising. No game has better exploited the cathartic properties of shambling walls of mindless flesh than Capcom's innocently sadistic survival comedy, and the sequel will take things even further, we're promised. It certainly will if the multiplayer gameshow, Terror is Reality, is anything to go by, with its antler-tossing, hamster balls and "Slicecycles".

God of War III

He just doesn't give a Kratos.

On: PS3 / Developer: Sony Santa Monica Studio / Publisher: Sony / Release: March 2010

Sony's so confident in God of War III that it spent the entirety of 2009 showing the same 15 minutes of gameplay, first hands-off to journos, then hands-on at E3 and finally letting the general public loose on it at shows like the Eurogamer Expo, where it stormed away with the public vote for game of the show. And no matter how many times you saw or played that demo, the slick, bloody spectacle and tactile punch of the combat system never faltered for a micro-second. Sony must be wishing it could clone the obscenely talented staff of Santa Monica Studio and its neighbour Naughty Dog, so well do they show off the PS3 (also because it could start outfits called Santa Dog and Naughty Monica).

Heavy Rain

On: PS3 / Developer: Quantic Dream / Publisher: Sony / Release: 26th February

Within the space of a month the PS3 exclusive line-up swings from one extreme to another, trading bombast for introspection and gory monster-mashing for the gentle art of conversation - but the big-budget sheen and astonishing visual fidelity is a common theme. David Cage's brave psychological thriller is almost a pure adventure, but it's not without its action beats, and it's nothing if not brooding and tense. It's also a genuine attempt to take videogames to a new place, with serious money and technology behind it, and how often do you see that?

Just Cause 2

Sling your hook.

On: PC, PS3, Xbox 360 / Developer: Avalanche Studios / Publisher: Square Enix / Release: 26th March

Actually, scrap what we said earlier about open-world games, because here comes Sweden's Avalanche to join that exclusive club. It was clear from the first Just Cause that they got it, but while the spirit was willing, the execution was weak. The sequel's a slicker proposition, but that hardly matters when it also has the new grapple hook, a tool that allows you to connect anything in the game to anything else and quite possibly the greatest gaming toy since the Gravity Gun. No other game this year, not even Dead Rising 2, embraces sheer sandbox chaos so fully.

The Last Guardian

On: PS3 / Developer: Team ICO / Publisher: Sony / Release: we can dream.

OK, being brutally realistic, we don't really believe this has much chance of seeing the light of day in 2010. But we decided to allow ourselves one total indulgence, one blind but fervent hope, and to hell with Rage and Diablo III and Zelda - it had to be Fumito Ueda's next lonely epic. That spellbinding trailer (go on, watch it again, you deserve it) has all the bleached beauty and tender melancholy we remember from Shadow of the Colossus and ICO, not to mention staggering animation and technical virtuosity. But it's the dizzy possibilities of the simple premise - what if the colossus was your friend? - that really excite the imagination. We probably won't know a thing more about it until it's almost upon us, and so much the better.

Metroid: Other M

On: Wii / Developer: Team Ninja / Publisher: Nintendo / Release: 2010

What on earth is going on here? Soapy CGI cut-scenes? Acrobatic action-game combos? Team Ninja? We know Nintendo's on a charm offensive with hardcore gamers, but letting the creators of Dead or Alive Beach Xtreme Beach Volleyball and Ninja Gaiden loose on the monolithic Metroid licence seems like a risky move - it's a mood game as much as anything else, and we're not sure that Team Ninja has the subtlety and restraint to pull it off. Or any subtlety and restraint at all, for that matter. That said, it's an unexpected and intriguing collaboration, and back in the day, no-one thought Retro Studios would be able to pull it off either.

Samus always?

Mafia II

On: PC, PS3, Xbox 360 / Developer: 2K Czech / Publisher: 2K Games / Release: Summer 2010

Wait, are we going to have to expand our list of open-world royalty again? Well, maybe not, because while 2K Czech get the basics right, Mafia II 's considered pace, painstaking authenticity and down-to-earth action contradict the rampant, antisocial hyperbole of GTA and crackdown. It's a delicate balancing act, but Mafia II has seemed to be managing it with grace and poise so far, and the longer it takes to make, the better we feel about it.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

"...99 ...100. Coming to get you, ready or not!"

On: PSP / Developer: Kojima Productions / Publisher: Konami / Release: 28th May

Who knows what Rising is all about, and frankly, who cares, when we can look forward to this full-fledged, Snake-hipped campaign from Hideo Kojima's playful mind. The idea that a PSP game could headline the Tokyo Game Show doesn't sound as ridiculous over there as it does over here, thanks to Monster Hunter - but once we discovered how good it looked, how funny it was and that the entire thing was playable in four-player co-op, we didn't think it was ridiculous at all. Look past the format and Metal Gear's chequered history on it, because this is very much the real deal.

Red Dead Redemption

On: PS3, Xbox 360 / Developer: Rockstar San Diego / Publisher: Rockstar Games / Release: 30th April

The videogame world is still waiting for its first truly great Western; last year's Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, for example, got the tone and texture absolutely right but only managed a mediocre game, and it's more common that they're neither. Rockstar seeks genre redemption in this gritty, serious, turn-of-the-century tale, and the developer certainly knows its cinematic cues, but it's the gorgeously lonesome open world that's the real draw; we can't wait to saddle up and just drift these plains.

Also in 2010

Deep breath: Alan Wake plunges into the darkness this spring; Splinter Cell: Conviction's so deep in the shadows we won't see it until much later in the year, now; Dante's Inferno pushes the boundaries of taste and inspiration, if not gameplay originality, next month; Dark Void jets in next week; Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands promises a return to the Sands of Time, but with a movie release window to hit, time is the one thing it doesn't really have; Kojima chips in on the development of a new 3D Castlevania: Lords of Shadow; the seedy glamour of Yakuza 3 finally makes its way West;

LucasArts succumbs to the dark side again in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II; Suda 51 peddles his delightful pop-art nonsense in No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle on Wii and remake No More Heroes: Heroes Paradise on 360 and PS3; Dead to Rights: Retribution barks up the wrong tree, probably; Ninja Theory does Monkey in the future with Enslaved ; LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 should casually show up the proper Potter games; Square Enix is suddenly claiming that Nier is an RPG, but we're not convinced; Splatterhouse survives developer BottleRocket's sad demise, and This Is Vegas outlives Midway; Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers could use a longer title, we feel; Zangeki no Reginleiv is Dynasty Warriors on drugs (and the Wii), from the makers of Earth Defence Force, so let's pray for a Western release; not something we have to do for 3D Dot Game Heroes any more; which is just as well because we should save our breath for the gorgeous Okamiden on DS anyway; tired yet? Take a break with Endless Ocean 2; swords and sandals abound in the Wii's Gladiator AD, Warriors: Legends of Troy and the Clash of the Titans movie spin-off; over in indie corner, there's the intriguing co-op jewel heist game Monaco, and the beautiful side-scroller Rocketbirds Revolution, while the amazing Zeno Clash is headed for XBLA; The Calling keeps survival horror alive on its own; Maijin: The Fallen Realm is a Last Guardian rip-off that will probably make it out before the real thing.

No More Heroes 2: it's a Travisty.

A quick word about adventure games: there are some! Even if you're not counting Heavy Rain, you can still look forward to these: the return of Gabriel Knight author Jane Jensen with Gray Matter; Hotel Dusk creators Cing offer a dark murder-mystery in Again on DS; Phoenix Wright's classic cases are being reissued on WiiWare, alongside a Miles Edgeworth investigation on DS; and indie experiment Trauma pieces together memories in a photo-collage style.

Probably not coming in 2010:

Will we see a new Wii Zelda in 2010? Satoru says "yes", Reggie says "not so sure", and we're inclined to side with the big man from Louisiana over his boss; EA won't want Dead Space 2 flighting its own Medal of Honor for shelf-space in the autumn; Rockstar North's espionage exclusive for PS3, Agent, is down for a 2010 release but is a cert to get delayed; Ubisoft is so vague on Beyond Good & Evil 2 and I Am Alive that it sometimes seems to forget they exist; Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 will need another six months at least; and were we dreaming it, or was there going to be a Bourne game by Starbreeze?