Last week was incredibly busy in the gaming world. E3 2011 dropped a ton of news and announcements throughout the week, and it was capped off with the release of Duke Nukem Forever. Now that the dust has settled we once again have time to check out some games that are just around the corner that really get us excited.
It’s actually a bit of a dry period as a lot of big name titles are being polished up for release for the holiday season. Still, there’s more than enough to keep gamers occupied for the next couple of weeks.
Alice: Madness Returns (17 June 2011 – PC, Xbox 360, PS3)
American McGee returns to lead development studio Spicy Horse in the design of Alice: Madness Returns. The original was praised for its dark and super twisted take on the classic Lewis Carroll creation of Wonderland and its inhabitants. American McGee himself boasts an extensive career in game design, having worked as a level designer on a number of id Software classic, from Doom through to Quake II.
In Alice: Madness returns we can expect phantasmagorical environments, macabrely twisted characters, and devious puzzle elements, delivered through third-person action-platforming-adventure gameplay.
As the original was released in 2000, the sequel is set roughly 11 years after those events. Alice has been released from her Asylum to live in Victorian London under the care of a psychiatrist. Attempting to come to terms with the traumatic (and suspicious) circumstances of her parents fiery deaths, Alice relapses into hallucinatory inner turmoil. Returning to Wonderland to seek refuge, only to be confronted with grim manifests of her nightmares – what secrets will Alice uncover through her battles?
Dungeon Siege III (17 June 2011 – PC, Xbox 360, PS3)
Chris Taylor, who spearheaded the design of the first Dungeon Siege at Gas Powered Games, returns to serve as an advisor to the Obsidian Entertainment team. This will be the first Dungeons Siege game to appear on consoles.
An action-RPG set in the war-torn Kingdom of Ehb, players will take on new characters telling a new chapter in the story of this land. Since the conclusion of Dungeon Siege II, The 10th Legion rose to power, and subsequently fell to political subterfuge and popular uprising. The Kingdom is once again divided into small warring factions. Only a few descendants of the 10th Legion remain, and they set off on a quest to cast out the usurper and reunite the land once again.
For a more in-depth look at Dungeon Siege II be sure to check out MyGaming’s hands-on preview of the title.
Dungeon Siege III PC hands-on preview
F.3.A.R. – 24 June 2011
F.E.A.R. 3 promises to deliver more of the paranormal/horror FPS action that the series is renowned for. The game will hopefully usher in a new era for the franchise, after a couple of dead-end expansion packs which have been disregarded as canon and FEAR 2 which was little more than a means to introduce current-gen console gamers to the franchise.
Alma returns in F.E.A.R. 3 but this time her sons Point Man and Paxton Fettel introduce divergent co-op, giving players distinctly different abilities affecting their own play as well as the experience of their co-op partner.
Gamers participate in single player or co-op modes as Point Man, a genetically enhanced super soldier originally introduced in F.E.A.R., or they can play cooperatively as his conniving brother Paxton Fettel, whose incredible telekinetic power has given him life beyond the grave.
Torchlight 2 – July 2011
Indie developer Runic Games made a giant splash in 2009 with their hack n slash RPG Torchlight. With the developers boasting a pedigree from Blizzard, it wasn’t surpising that Torchlight hit all the right notes with fans of the genre. Torchlight 2 promises to deliver more of the colourful Torchlight style action we came to love, but bigger and better than before. Multiplayer has been added to the mix along with other graphical niceties such as day/night and weather cycles. This is probably just just what gamers need to tide them over until Diablo III is finally released.
Postal 3 – September 2011 (supposedly)
The Postal series certainly caters to a specific demographic of gamers – those who can shrug off a bit (okay, a lot) of senseless, bloody, pointless, over-the-top violence. Everyone else should probably stay away, because they will just be annoyed and disgusted, and there aren’t enough high-horses to go around.
Postal 3 is shaping up to be yet another bloody, mindless, twisted, white-trash romp – it’s saving grace is that it of course doesn’t take itself seriously at all. Where else will you be able to take on Al Qaeda with a rpid badger or AIDS infested cat?
5 games to look forward to (13 June 2011) << Comments and views
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