{"id":11634,"date":"2011-05-09T10:04:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T08:04:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T22:00:00","slug":"5-games-to-look-forward-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/features\/11634-5-games-to-look-forward-to","title":{"rendered":"5 games to look forward to"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is but a sampling of new games to look forward to. Some are right around the corner, others on the horizon, and the rest still a long way off without any concrete release dates. Still, that won’t stop us from indulging in a favourite pastime of gamers – anticipation.<\/p>\n

L.A. Noire<\/strong><\/span> – 20 May 2011<\/p>\n

Team Bondi and Rockstar Games have been kicking around the L.A. Noire project in one form or another since 2004. While it’s often a bad sign when a game takes this long to become a reality, there are always exceptions. Judging from the pre-release build-up of information and footage, L.A. Noire is looking to be something special.<\/p>\n

L.A. Noire is a dark and violent detective thriller set against the backdrop of Los Angeles in the post-war years of the late 1940s. The game draws stylistically from the film noir genre of movies, which were popular in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Instead of playing the typical anti-hero character often associated with Rockstar games, players will take on the role of a police officer working their way up through the ranks of the L.A. police force.<\/p>\n

The gameplay will consist of plenty of familiar GTA style run-n-gun and driving action, but will also introduce investigative segments, with plenty of different cases to solve. The game is of course heavily story driven, with well-directed cutscenes delivering over 20 hours of audio dialogue. The film noir style of detective drama will be fully realised thanks to some spiffing new motion capture technology – MotionScan<\/a> – which was used to capture performances from a huge cast of professional actors. The realism of the facial animations and their immersive quality must be seen to be believed.<\/p>\n

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim<\/strong><\/span> – 11 November 2011<\/p>\n

Skyrim promises to take everything that Oblivion did right, chuck out the things it did wrong, and then give everything a good polishing. One of the first things to go (an likely nobody will mourn its passing) was the old Gamebryo Engine – to be replaced with Bethesda’s new Creation Engine. Promised improvements include; a reworked level of detail and draw distance system, dynamic lighting and shadows rendered across the entire game environment, and a bespoke foliage and weather system.<\/p>\n

Other improvements include the Radiant AI and Radiant Story systems, which Bethesda promises will add immersion, believability and character to the game world – something which suffered under Gamebryo. Havok physics and a new Havok animation system have also been introduced. The animation middleware is especially promising, as Oblivion was notorious for its terrible, wooden animations. Catch up on the Skyrim storyline<\/a>, and watch the gameplay reveal.<\/p>\n

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Battlefield 3 <\/strong><\/span>– Q4 2011<\/p>\n

EA and DICE have been talking up the next big entry in their Battlefield franchise. Building on everything that was done right in the fantastic Battlefield: Bad Company 2, DICE plans to deliver nothing short of a Call of Duty killer. The game is being built on top of DICE’s all-new Frostbite 2 engine – if you’ve played Bad Company 2 then you’ve had a taste of what the previous generation engine can deliver. Destructible environments, advanced dynamic lighting techniques, immersive sound effects – the engine promises to deliver the next level of audio-visual gaming experience, supplemented by DICE’s stellar FPS single-and multi-player gameplay mechanics.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, we’re really looking forward to this one. If you are an FPS fan, this gameplay footage montage may just induce a Lady Chatterly’s crisis.<\/p>\n

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Star Wars: The Old Republic<\/strong><\/span> – Q4 2011 (possibly January 2012)<\/p>\n

Gamers often huddle around trashcan fires, speaking in hushed tones about the legendary World of WarCraft killer, before fleeing back into their mother’s basements as the spectre of Mike Morhaime riding a battle-gryphon passes overhead, pushing back release dates with impunity. Many pretenders have stepped up in attempts to take the MMO crown, and all have fallen. Could SW:ToR be the one?<\/p>\n

With the oh-so-exploitable Star Wars franchise at their disposal, revered RPG development studio BioWare have set about developing an MMORPG that they hope will at least set itself on par with the indomitable WoW. If rumours of their budget allocation are true, BioWare might just have what it takes. Star Wars fans, BioWare fans, and gamers looking for a AAA-grade MMO that isn’t set in a world of high-fantasy are holding thumbs for this one.<\/p>\n

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Bioshock Infinite<\/strong> <\/span>– TBA 2012<\/p>\n

The first BioShock, developed by Irrational Games (a studio born from the ashes of the legendary Looking Glass Studios) cemented its place as a gaming classic. The game was built on cornerstones of great art direction and character development, clever level design, solid gameplay, and a compelling story. We won’t mention BioShock 2, developed by 2K Marin…<\/p>\n

Irrational Games is back at the helm of BioShock Infinite. Instead of the deepest oceans, players will be taking to the skies, exploring the city of Columbia. Players take the role of Booker Dewitt, an ex-Pinkerton agent sent by a mysterious man to find a woman by the name of Elizabeth who has been held captive in Columbia for 15 years. Your benefactor gets you to Columbia, and finding Elizabeth turns out to be easy enough. Leaving Columbia however, is not as straight forward…<\/p>\n

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Which games are you looking forward to? <\/a><< Let us know on the MyGaming forums<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These are five cool games to look forward to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}