Honourable Mention- Lord of the Rings: War in the North (X360, PS3, PC)
Lord of the Rings War in the North is being developed by Snowblind Studios whose last great game was Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. The game is an action RPG set in the Tolkien's classic universe but is out of continuity of the movies and the books to tell it's own epic story. One thing to immediately seperate this game from other recent LotR games is the M rating so expect blood and gore. The game is played as a group of three: a human wizard, a dwarf fighter and an elf ranger. The game will support three player co op through the game. The game will have fully customizable characters and a Mass Effect like conversation system. Sounds good right? Well the reason it's an honourable mention is that no gameplay has been seen so I want to see some of that first.
5. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (XBLA)
First off yes Castlevania Lords of Shadow, the epic 3D Catlevania was at E3 but in my opinion I'll have to play it before I say anything about because I'm not sure how well the game will do in 3D. Castlevania Harmony of Despair, a 2D game though looks to be awesome. This is a multiplayer only Castlevania something we have never seen before and it looks great. The game supports 6 player co op in multiplayer game mode very much like raids in World of Warcraft. The game has 6 levels each with a boss that must be hunted on a giant castle map and not only is the map full of traps and dead ends, the boss has a ton of health and you have 10 minutes to kill it. You'll probably die many times but luckily you keep your loot, so the idea is to every attempt you get a little bit better just like in WoW. The game has multiple characters to select from taken from previous Castlevania games like Alucard and every character will have a diffrent route to the boss based on their abilities. With the combination of WoW raids and old school Castlevania levels this game looks very promising.
4. Pirates of the Carribean: Armada of the Damned (X360, PS3, PC)
I know what your thinking, Pirates of the Carribean, they ruined that with World's End. Why would you want to play a game based on ruined movies? Well first off Armada of the Damned shares one and one thing only with the film series, the universe. The game has a completely original tale based before the movies. The game is made by Propaganda Games developers of the awesome Turok reboot two years back. You play as Sterling a pirate who dies at the beginning of the game but is given by supernatural forces a second chance. You get to choose the Dreaded path or the Legendary path creating technically two games in one but you get to choose good and evil choices throughout the game. The game is very much like Fable as it is an action RPG, so the gameplay is based on combos of spells and light/heavy attacks. In fact the evil Sterling fights with a boat anchor is one of the more awesome bits while light Sterling can shoot rum for fire spells. The game will have a full skill system as well. Then there's ship combat, which looks to be truly strategic with special skills for ship battles too as your in basically a war plus you can explore the Carribean with your ship and the devs promise 100hrs in quest content with side quests. Wow. Truly this game sounds great and it's coming next year.
3. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (X360, PS3)
Enslaved is the only game here that is truly original and even that could be debated because it's based off the ancient Chinese novel Journey to the West which if you watch Dragonball you'll know it well. The game comes from Heavenly Sword developer Ninja Theory which is great at creating beautiful games but not exactly fun games. Enslaved looks like a huge change of pace. The game is played as Monkey with his mate Trip in tow. Are world has gone through an apocalypse destroying humanity. The world is now recovering with empty cities which are now covered into vegetation creating a very ghostly beautiful world. Trip has put a special headband on Monkey that allows her to control him because she needs him to survive. So if she dies he dies. The characters come from two diffrent lives: Monkey is loner who hand to hand, while Trip is from a tribe of technology specialists. The relationship looks to be very real and interesting. But don't worry she's no Ashley, Trip has survival instinct and will actually help you. She offers recon and as all the enemies are robots she can offer tech support in terms of EMP attacks to disable them or hack through doors and open new areas. The games combat standard God of War formula by the looks of it but what looks awesome is the platforming. Monkey is basically a monkey as he quickly ascends walls and jumps over gaps like Prince of Persia except faster. There's also his cloud which is like a hoverboard presenting even more platforming possibilities. Enslaved looks to put great work into it's emotional storytelling with great characters and awesome gameplay.
2. Shogun 2: Total War (PC)
The Total War series is one of the best RTS series out there and in my opinion better than Civilization (don't worry I love Civ, and I'm gonna buy Civ5). Empire and Napolean, the two most recent games are great but a bit overcomplicated which is why seeing the series go back to it's roots and simplicity with a sequel to the first game Shogun Total War. Recent Total war games have had hundreds of unit types with many not very unique. Shogun II has just 30, to clearly define a more rock paper scissors approach to battle in terms of archers, cavalry and spearman. But what really defines the game is the beauty he game has of it's historically accurate 15th century feudal Japan. The battle sequences are beautiful, which is something RTS games don't really need to have so it's impressive to see the extra effort. Real weather effects are now part of the game like wind and fog, which effects the physics enabled battlefield so trees and grass sway in the wind. Individual soldiers have detail too, with a nighttime sequence having them carry lanterns. The battles are realsitic too as a squad of samurai will seperate into small swordfights. Castle assaults are helped by complicated castle layouts as is naval combat thanks to the boats being oar driven making hem easier to control. The campaigns will be affected by the seasons and family management will return as will general speeches. So Shogun II is shaping up to be among the greatest strategy games next year when it's released.
1. Yakuza 4 (PS3)
The Yakuza series is a gem of a game series with dedicated fans who always make sure the game gets to are shores. Yakuza really is an amazing game series and Yakuza 4 just expands on it. Yakuza is the child of a JRPG and GTA: you'll wander Tokyo, fight random battles and level up. Throw high level storytelling, tons of fun minigames and dozens of sidequests and you have an awesome game series. Yakuza 4 mixes the game up with Kazuma the main character being joined by 3 other guys who each have a diffrent fighting style mixing up the random battles. The game world is highly detailed with many shops. The game series is similar to Shenmue as the world is highly detailed. The game is completely in Japanese as a way of immersing you into the feel of being in Japan but don't worry subtitles are here for us non speakers. The random battles are not turn based instead they work a bit like a 3D fighting game with tons of complex moves and combos, all equaling to filling a Heat gauge for environment based finishers. Yakuza 4 is also adding something sega removed from Yakuza 3, hostess clubs. The game allows you to go into these clubs and start dating a girl which requires you to act like a gentleman, like getting her a dress or buying her dinner. You can also play those minigames with her like ping pong and by the way if you try to oggle her it will actually turn her off. Yakuza 4 looks to fix any and all problems found in Yakuza 3 and for that it is the most overlooked game of E3 2010 so go buy the games cause there awesome.
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