The 2009 Video Game Thread
 

Figured it might be best to start this up because a lot of great games are coming out soon.

Skate 2 is due next week, and I plan on picking that up. The first Skate was a blast, and this one should be even better. Really has put Tony Hawks franchise to shame, though they haven't done much for their own cause since Underground 2 or whatever it was.

The MLB2k Manager game is out in two weeks I think. I for sure will rent that and see how it is.

Then in March .. The Show 09, which is a must get as it's the best baseball franchise around, and the game of the year, imo, Resident Evil 5 is due.

It's gonna be a lot of fun this year with RE5, God of War 3, Prototype, the Agency, etc.

Here's some info on The Show 09:

MLB '09: The Show includes the following improvements:[4]

Road to the Show 3.0: The new version of the popular mode includes an all-new steal and lead-off system, and more interaction with the player's coaches.

Franchise 2.0: Now includes salary arbitration, waiver transactions, September call-ups, and the 40-man roster.

New Yankee Stadium as it appears in-game.
Improved online play: Now includes flex scheduling to allow players to play out-of-order games, and Roster Vault option to allow gamers can create their own custom rosters and upload them online for other gamers to use.

Custom Music/Replays: Gamers will also be able to store their favorite songs to their PlayStation 3 and assign them to be played at various points in the game, including a batter's walk-up animation. Players may also create custom taunts.

Hotshot Fielding: The game now includes more dynamic fielder reactions and animations, as well as improved bare-handed flips.

Progressive Batting Performance: Player abilities can improve or regress depending on how the gamer plays.

Post Game/In Game Pitcher and Batter Analysis: Pitch Analysis is a breakdown of all the pitches thrown during the current game being played. Gamers will be able sort by pitcher, LHB or RHB, pitch type and result. This feature is also available for Batters, and the batter analysis allows for a breakdown of how a batter has performed based on LHP or RHP, Pitch Type, and result.

Pitch Grips: The game will accurately graphically reflect the pitch being thrown on the pitcher's hand, and will include 17 different pitch types including five fastball variations (four-seamer, two-seamer, cutter, splitter, sinker), five breaking pitches (10-4 curve, 12-6 curve, slider, slurve, screwball), four change-ups (straight, circle change-up, palmball, forkball), and three specialty pitches (knuckle, knuckle-curve, and the gyro).

SportsConnect Online User Tracking (SCOUT): SCOUT allows gamers to set their game preferences, store them on the server, and then allows the system to look for a Quick Match with an opponent that fits their criteria.

Live Sports Updates: Live MLB updates in-game, as well as SportsConnect Headline News.

Multi-Branch Fielding: Players can now take full control of fielders and break out of any animation in the process.

Adaptive Pitching Intelligence (API): Catchers will call the game based on individual strengths and weaknesses of each pitcher and analyze tendencies of batters.

Pitch Command System (PCS): Pitchers' abilities to throw a specific pitch change depending on how often the pitcher throws it.

Revamped Umpire Personalities: Umpire personalities have been tweaked further.

For PC gaming Dawn of War 2 is due out around March. For those that don't know, its essentially Company of Heroes in the Warhammer 40k setting. Multiplayer beta is free for download on the 28th of this month.

Dragon Age: Origins is also due out in March (Christmas 09 on consoles) and is a Bioware RPG. Nothing more really needs to be said.

Other games on my radar are Aliens: Colonial Marines (Q2), Champions Online (Q2), Blood Bowl (Q2), and World in Conflict: Soviet Assault (Q2),

I'm looking forward to Empire: Total War. That's about it so far. Between that and my current games (Fable 2, Madden, NCAA 09, Civ IV, FM 2009) I'll be busy enough!

Oh and how dare I forget Guitar Hero: Metallica?

Fuck I am pumped.

What I'm looking forward to in the next few months, though time might prevent me from buying all these once they come out. Football Manager 09 is taking up plenty of my gaming time still:

Dragon Quest V: Chapters of the Chosen (DS - RPG)
Little King's Story (Wii - simulation/RPG)
New Play Control: Pikmin (Wii - strategy)
New Play Control: Mario Tennis (Wii - sports)
MadWorld (Wii - beat 'em up)
Pro Evolution Soccer 09 (Wii - sports)
Empire: Total War (PC - strategy)

As many Wii games in the first few months of 09 as I bought in all of 2008. Not much on the PS3 front for me personally, I might check out the Show again even though I liked Power Pros 2008 more last year. I'll wait for a PC port of Resident Evil 5, I don't like dual analog FPS/TPS.

I thought Dragon Age: Origins was due out in late January/early Feb on the computer? It is easily my most anticipated game of the year.

Edit: Nevermind, I see a date of March 23rd now.

I believe I will get this for my daughter and I, though I will have to pick up a classic controller if this is the game I am thinking of. The way to play this game on the Wii (once again if it's the game I am thinking of, which I think it is) just sounds really cool with two people.

The Wii Active game sounds like it might be a nice addition to the "fitness" genre. Don't know if I'm actually looking FORWARD to it, though... :)

Any tips on some more hotly anticipated Wii games for '09?

TMNT (team that worked on Brawl is working on a TMNT fighting game). I'm looking forward to a game called Infinite Space. Also looking forward to Klonoa and Wii Sports Resort.

Probably the biggest one most people are looking forward to is The Conduit, which is an FPS that is supposed to really push the hardware and have online and all that jazz. There's also things like Mad World, Monster Hunter 3, Punch-Out, Red Steel 2, Sin and Punishment 2, and Sonic and the Black Knight.

Blood Bowl in June for me

Games I will get first day

OOTP 10

Faceoff Hockey 2008

Draft Day Sports Basketball 2

DDS Football

Games I will give a chance
MLB 2k Manager Game
MLB 2k 2010
NBA Live 2010
EA NHL 2010
EA March Madness 2010
DDS Baseball


Games I would like to see, and would buy no matter what but who knows if they will be made:

FOF 2009
Bowl Bound 2
TCY 2
Head Coach 2010

Games I will probably buy in the off chance they are good
Madden
EA NCAA 10


from my list it is pretty obvious my gaming is sports sim focused. Looks like a year where we are going to get a lot of baseball titles, but not much yet announced in football which is too bad, because for me OOTP 9 is already so much of what I want a game to be, but all available football titles are dated and fall short.

Yeah, new for this year's version is the ability for two people to play co-op, one pointing to aim their passes and shots with the IR pointer on the Wiimote while the other uses a classic controller for a more traditional experience.

PES 2008 on the Wii was a really good first effort, the second one should be great without the quirky defensive controls and the addition of IR shot aiming.


The 1:1 swordfighting in Wii Sports Resort looks fun as hell, can't wait for that. Infinite Space sounds cool as well.

I am looking forward to "Dawn of War II" and "Blood Bowl." I have plenty of games to hold me over til then thanks to my post-Christmas buying spree on Steam.

So having finished Mirror's Edge, I can say the thing I hated the most about it was the fact it is kind of short. Good thing I took it slow or I would have been done with it before New Years. I wanted to stretch it out though since the wife got it for a present, even though I knew it should have been just a rental. The aiming/shooting isn't the smoothest either, but liveable.

So who gives good value for trade ins? I am going to check with Hastings, which I am sure most people don't have by them. They have a big used game section.

Must-haves:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Rock Band: Beatles

Wait and see:

Resident Evil 5 (only because I don't play 1-player games much...but this game will be amazing)
NCAA Football 2010

Dreaming about:

TCY 2

A lot remains to be seen about this year. I'm sure I'll end up buying 10 games or so like I do every year. Who knows what it will be though. The must-haves are two games I'm crapping my pants about almost a year in advance ;)

RE 5 will have co-op, offline and online. MUST GET

I'm looking forward to Empire: Total War more than any game in years.

NCAA10 and a few other console games I'll keep my eye on but only one game i'm definitely buying.

Haven't seen Killzone 2 or Infamous mentioned.

Killzone 2 is getting excellent feedback from the beta community. Hopefully they don't have any SOCOM-like online problems on release. If the release is clean, it should sell very well.

Infamous reminds me of Crackdown. Will be interesting to see how it fares.

mental note: buy new computer that can handle many of these suggestions. I am now really excited about Dragon Age: Origins. I am a big Bioware fan after BG II, NWN, and both KOTOR's

Just as a heads-up, Harmonix are doing a Beatles game, but it isn't necessarily Rock Band related.

If you're just calling it that for simplicity's sake, cool, but don't get your hopes up on the Beatles catalog showing up in, specifically, Rock Band form.

Dawn of War 2

Infamous

Ghostbusters

Stargate Worlds (although, I don't hold high hopes for it plus, with Cheyenne Mountain's current issues, probably will get canned... still, I'm a Stargate fan so I'll give it a chance)

This is Vegas - Is Dawgfan still on this project?

Yep!

UFC 2009 - looking forward to see how this is

NHL 10 - the last version won me back

Madden 10 - enjoying the 09 version so far, but just started messing with it

Head Coach 10 - Hope some improvements continue to be made (tired of my starting QB getting injured on kickoff coverage)

FOF 2009 - Please, please, please...

TCY 2 - or Please, please, please

Brothers in Arms 4 - whatever the subtitle, I would LOVE to see the next one come out this year as they hit the Battle of the Bulge

FBCB2 - Please, please, please


I know there are others that are either coming out or I would love to see come out (as I have noted some already :) ) but they are not on the top of my head at the moment.

Yep. Seriously Jim, there have been 3 revisions to FOF since TCY came out. Can you throw us college football junkies a bone and make a TCY 2? We're dying here...

It's for simplicity's sake :) Honestly, what I expect is a Rock Band game with a fleshed-out story mode of how the Beatles came & went. No matter what, it's going to be amazing, even for us casual Beatles fans.

You guys are all fools, this year will suck for games. ;)

hxxp://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10132435-17.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0

Dola- damn, it didn't put spacing between paragraphs. Sorry but I am not going back to edit it as much as it bugs me.

I find that if you copy stuff from a webpage that has spaces but doesn't when you paste it to FOFC, there's a way around this. Open up notepad and paste it there- the spaces will usually show up- then select all and paste to FOFC and they will show up.

SI

The current financial crisis could also play into release dates of many of the titles... Every day you hear of more and more companies cutting back, that can only slow down getting the product to market.

Really surprised that this author was so disconnected with the industry rumors around price cuts. The $100 PS3 price cut in March/April is all but a given at this point and there are lots of indicators from both retailers and analysts that a price cut on the 360 Pro and Elite models may also come to combat the PS3 price drop.

Well, I am not a diehard console gamer, though I become so for certain games I guess if I like them. With that said I think this guy is pretty off in his thinking. Just hearing some of the games brought up here I am excited about a couple games, and I feel this guy would just brush them off. I can't think of how I would label it, uninformed, perhaps casual gamer, something else, but he doesn't bring up games like MLB The Show '09 or other games mentioned here lots of people are looking forward to.

That is why I posted it though, with the wink. I think it's kind of a crap article.

Good tip. :thumbsup:

I agree. I just get annoyed with what is passed off as reporting anymore. The standard on some of these sites has dropped dramatically.

2009 will have as many good games as 2008 imo. If the only noteworthy games were the ones in his article I'd probably have to find a new hobby.
The dude lists five games, four of which are shooters and the one that isn't still has Halo in the title. :D

The mainstream gaming press doesn't have the same love for sports and strategy games that many on FOFC do.

Brutal Legend - maybe

Deus Ex 3 - Hellz yeah!!!! ;)

I Am Alive - maybe

Starcraft 2 is still slated for an '09 release isn't it? Any Final Fantasy games due out this year?

Not sure if it will squeak in as 2009 release but I am looking forward to Diablo 3.

I'll be surprised if either Starcraft or Diablo arrive in 2009.

I think the first chapter of Starcraft 2 will make it this year. Beta testing started this month so a summer release isn't out of the question. I'm interested in hearing if they expect people to pay full price for each chapter.

If they hit the summer release for Starcraft I wouldn't be shocked to see Diablo get a holiday release.

What is the deal with Skate 2? I thought it came out yesterday. I stopped by Hastings coming home from jury duty just a bit ago to trade in Mirror's Edge and pick up Skate 2, but they didn't have it out. I ask the employee nearby and she said she remember's a company email about it that said it was kicked back to release tomorrow. I get home and search it and everything I see says it is supposed to be out today. I am confused. :crazy:

Either way, I rented a blu-ray movie and have to go back there tomorrow so I guess I should be able to pick it up then whenever it is actually released.

I read somewhere (Kotaku, I think) that "Dawn of War II" is actually be released a week earlier than anticipated. That's pretty sweet news. I believe that will be my birthday present to myself. I am very generous that way.

I have a birthday in 9 months .. Does this generousty spread to fellow 248'ers?

Champions MMORPG is definitely going to get a look from me.
Also, I hope something happens with Brutal Legend, as it looks quite promising.
I'm also looking forward to the new Puzzlequest game.

Picked up Skate 2 on PS3 a few hours ago. Went to Hastings and almost walked out without asking, all confused, when I didn't see it out. I asked though because I know it should have been out today at the latest. They had it in the back.

I never played Skate, so the controls are taking some getting used to. I love the game so far though and can tell this was a value purchase (lots of playing time in the future). I loved the opening scene in career mode, which I didn't start until an hour of free skating.

If you like skating games, or even not, so far I highly recommend this game. Having a blast.

I was late to pick up Skate, and I really got a ton of playtime out of that game, I'm looking forward to picking up the 2nd one, once I wear out the first, in the near future.

The beta is available now for anyone who owns Soulstorm. I'm getting ready to fire it up now. (For those who don't have DoW: Soulstorm it's on sale for $7.50 on Steam right now.) I never got into Dawn of War much but I really loved Company of Heroes. Anxious to try this out although the early impressions have been mixed at best.

I needed to come back and post that Skate 2 is not perfect. I am guessing that walking around was not really something you could do in the first one? I know there is a line from a guy that suggests that. Either way, walking around could use some work. There are times when you need to walk, and move things around. It just is not the smoothest thing in the world. It actually got annoying to me earlier when I needed to move a ramp. Still a great game so far despite this though.

If Deus Ex 3 is half as good as Deus Ex, it will be the best game in years. Stoked about that. Not sure if it is on target for a 2009 release, sounds like a small development team that hasn't released a lot of information yet.

I will buy NCAA 10 for the online gameplay, and any sports text sims that come out. Other than that will probably be rent and see. Nothing else really catches my eye the way that Fallout, GOW 2 and GTA4 did last year.

Let me know what you think.

Resident Evil 5 demo is out.

So fucking good. This is gonna be the best game of 09 for sure.

What may have been the worst kept secret of 2008 was finally confirmed. Dead Rising 2 will be multiplatform. Sounds like they'll toss in some content on the 360 so 360 gamers don't feel jilted over the move.

I'm getting a bit worried that the hype may be overblown on this game. Some of the impressions of the demo I have seen thus far are luke-warm. Certainly, you shouldn't base the demo impression on what the final game will be like, but it's a bit concerning. We'll assume it's just an average demo.

A sequel to Boom Blox will be out this spring.


link

Honeslty I can't think of another video game were my wife, daughter, and I all sit down to play together. We did it the other night. The wife and daughter will play the Sims together, or my daughter will play other games with me (Skate 2 right now), but nothing were the three of us sit there and swap controllers all enjoying it. Boom Blox 2 will be pretty cool to have, though we really are not that far into Boom Blox yet.

I do agree to an extent. The problem is if you never played RE4, then RE5 is gonna seem clunky because it's the same controls. but RE4 is still one of my 5 favorite games ever.

The online co-op is a blast though.

I think the 360 owners new to RE5 will probably not like RE5 as much as the guys who have played it since its PS only days.

Killzone 2 preorder deal on Amazon. $52 shipped with coupon code KZ2SAVE5.

GTA 4: Lost and the Damned DLC comes out the 17th. It's 20 bucks and 2 GB of memory, but looks amazing:

$20? And I would have to spend money to hook my 360 up to the internet. I will probably pass, sadly.

Supposedly it's like 5 hours of totally new gameplay.

I thought that was the point of the company making the demo, and of you playing it.

If only that were true. The release of alpha/beta builds as a demo is never a good idea, yet it seems to be occuring with increasing frequency, especially in the console market.

Sonic and Mario are heading to the Winter Olympics, as expected. Original game sold like hotcakes, so this was a no-brainer.

I'd love to see a rebirth of the Sonic franchise. I grew up playing it non-stop on the Genesis and have been frustrated with the iterations in general since that console. It's a great character with just as much potential as Mario if done properly.

I don't know whether this will affect your decision, but I do know that Microsoft will be allowing free access to the 'Gold' content for the first few days after release of the GTA DLC, so you don't have to purchase a Gold membership to download the content.

I personally think this is a pretty heavy duty money grab for what basically amounts to a 5 hour career mode, but I'm sure there are some fans that will pay for it. I'm sure that sales of this content would have been MUCH better had they released it last fall.

Here's a sweet video for MadWorld which comes out in a few weeks. Looking forward to this one. Solid commentary as well:

"Would really want your kids to see any of this?"
"Sure why not? Don't want to raise a society full of pussies"

ign.com link

Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics better have curling as one of the sports or I'm gonna be pissed. Wii Motion Plus support would also be cool.

Eh, it doesn't effect my decision too much really. I wouldn't mind paying for XBox Live I guess, but I think at this point I refuse to pay to actually connect my XBox to the internet. My only real option is to get a wireless connector for it and I refuse to pay $100 for one. Using a CAT 5 cable would just be a pain with having to get an 50'+ wire to run across my house. The money I could have spent on that went into the PS3 instead.

You don't have to get the MS $100 wireless device to connect wirelessly. There are a few $20 wireless bridges you can get from NewEgg that will work just fine.

I connect mine through my laptop, cable from xbox to laptop then uses the laptop's wireless connectivity:

Go wireless with your XBox 360, without the $100 MS adapter

If that's an option for you.

Ok, see these two things may be legit ways to do it, thanks guys. I have searched for ways in the past as late as October I think it was and never really saw anything that looked reasonable. I guess I was not using the right search terms or something.

Newegg and through the laptop. Will consider it, I still want to try GTA IV online even if I don't get the DLC for it.

:D

SI

Anyone tried Star Ocean: The Last Hope yet? The commercials look interesting and early user reviews on Gamestop are averaging a 9.1 so I'm considering picking it up.

I recommend that anyone who grew up playing video games in the eighties pick up Retro Game Challenge for DS, it's pretty sweet so far with lots of nerd humor in between the games.

I'm playing Nobu Nobu Boy... yeah.

How did I miss this one? As soon as someone has some silly sale where it drops to $20, it's mine. (this seems like the type of game that will be clearanced out for $10 easy so I can't spent too much on it- it's just how I am)

SI

Really want to try that one, it looks like just the sort of oddball that I'd love, and I was a huge Katamari fan.

I can't pull myself away from Street Fighter 4 long enough to buy it though.

Just picked up Street Fighter IV myself yesterday. Can't say it's really sunk it's hooks into me very deep just yet. I mostly got it because I loved SF2 and SF2-Turbo on the old SNES.

EA's coming out with a Tournament edition of their college basketball game. Has the rosters and tournament only (no season play). $15 download on Xbox 360.

Exclusive: First Look at NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition - GameSpot Sports Beat - Gaming News and Videos For Sports Video Games - Football Video Games - Baseball Video Games

It's cool that you can upload videos directly to youtube. The place will be flooded with crap like my video here:

what the hell is that

MikeVic.. wtf?

:crazy:

That's the $5 downloadable "game" released last week. :)

I just read that Dragon Age for the PC has been delayed until November "to consolidate the marketing campaign with the console version and polish it further." I'm disappointed as I was looking forward to playing it, but plenty of other stuff to catch up on (if I can ever tear myself away from College Hoops 2k8.)

I must say they timed Map Pack 1 for COD:WaW fairly well. Online play was dipping a little (on PSN anyways) and my interest had faded some. Now things have kicked back into high gear though. Three great maps added, worth $10 for sure.

Max Payne 3 announced for Winter 2009...........

GDC today. New Zelda for DS announced, plus a storage solution (SD cards made usable). Also something about a new Wario Ware game for the new DSi I think?

Anyone playing Killzone 2 for PS3?

I just spent about 20 minutes fooling around with the Age of Booty demo. That game looks like it would be so much fun in multiplayer.

General summary of Wii/DS news from Iwata's speech/other goings on at GDC:

WarioWare Snapped will be a DSiWare launch title here.

Level 5 let slip that Professor Layton 2 is being localized and will be out this year.

Rhythm Heaven demo now available on Nintendo Channel, it's cooler than I thought it would be.

Virtual Console will now have classic arcade titles.

The Wii storage solution was long overdue and works pretty well.

Punch-Out!! Wii will have balance board support (shift weight to dodge punches) as an option

Square-Enix are bringing some of the earlier Final Fantasy games to Virtual Console and are making Final Fantasy:Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord (a sequel of sorts to WiiWare's My Life as a King but now instead of organizing raiding parties and town planning the game has you building dungeons designed to kill off adventurers). Final Fantasy IV: the After (episodic sequel) will also be coming to WiiWare

New WiiWare title Rock N’ Roll Climber will use balance board to simulate rock climbing.

Though none are known about yet, in the future there will be DSi-only or DSi-enhanced game carts, sort of like the GameBoy -> GameBoy Color transition I suppose.

The marketing catchphrase, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired:

"Prepare to be rhythmically challenged!"

So, what, teaches people how to white-boy dance? >.>

haha

They did hire Beyonce to advertise the game. I guess they put more money into hiring celebs than coming up with witty catchphrases.

This demo is kicking my ass, I am lacking in rhythm.

As I said in one of the game threads, after weeks of it being out I still have not seen the game in stores down here this whole time. The wife checked Target last night for me once again and it wasn't there.

BUT! Tonight we were at Target again and they must have gotten some in last night because they had 6 of them. I have it sitting next to me right now and will crack the thing open and start playing later tonight once I have a website updated, dinner out of the way, and the whole rubbing the pregnant wife's back thing over with. I will be up until 6 a.m. or so playing I would guess.

Loads of copies at the Green Bay Best Buy.

I'm too busy with MLB 09 The Show and Fable II, though.

Been playing for almost 2 hours, a little less. Great game so far. Looks frickin' amazing, and the action is non-stop. A little of everything so far and I know there is more to come. They do an excellent job of mixing things up so far. One speedy little tank you get to drive. Love the game so far it seems. After a little break here I think I will try the online stuff, since this is the game I figure has been cutting into the number of players on COD:WaW online.

Just picked up The Last Remnant for the PC, a Square Enix JRPG. I'm having fun with the unique battle system and the turbo mode on the PC. The storyline isn't that good, but this battle system is fun, and the game in gorgeous.

I saw that the PS3 version likely won't even be released due to weak 360 sales thus far. Just didn't fulfill its promise for one reason or another.

The real shame of the Killzone 2 release is that it came at the same time as The Show release. Both are fantastic games, but they're competing for consumer attention.

I heard that the 360 version was graphically buggy. I didn't pick it up for the 360.

The PC version looks great. It uses the Unreal Engine really well on the PC.

How is the retail version?

I'm thinking about picking this one up today.

Downloaded Peggle from Xbox Live the other day. My 5 year old loves it, and it's actually not a bad little puzzle game, especially since it's only 800 pts.